THE battle at Burnt Corn was regarded by the Indians as a declaration
of war by the whites. Till then they seemed to consider themselves
engaged in a domestic quarrel, or civil war;[337] but after the
massacre at Fort Mims they could not retreat, and yet knew that they
must perish except for supernatural aid. Their destiny was controlled
by that of Tecumthe. Ten days after the massacre at Fort Mims, Perry
won his victory on Lake Erie, which settled the result of the Indian
wars both in the North and in the South. Tecumthe had expected to
capture Fort Meigs, and with it Fort Wayne and the line of the Maumee
and Wabash. On the impulse of this success he probably hoped to raise
the war-spirit among the Chickasaws and Choctaws, and then in person to
call the Creeks into the field. Proctor’s successive defeats blasted
Indian hopes, and the Creeks had hardly struck their first blow in
his support when Tecumthe himself fell, and the Indians of the Lakes
submitted or fled to Canada.
At best, the Creek outbreak would have been hopeless. Although the
number of hostile Creek warriors was matter of conjecture, nothing
showed that they could exceed four thousand. At Pensacola, Peter
McQueen was said to have claimed forty-eight hundred “gun-men” on
his side.[338] At such a moment he probably exaggerated his numbers.
The Big Warrior, who led the peace party, estimated the hostile
Creeks, early in August, as numbering at least twenty-five hundred
warriors.[339] If the number of gun-men was four thousand, the number
of guns in their possession could scarcely be more than one thousand.
Not only had the Creeks few guns, and those in poor condition, but they
had little powder or lead, and no means of repairing their weapons.
Their guns commonly missed fire, and even after discharging them,
the Creeks seldom reloaded, but resorted to the bow-and-arrows which
they always carried. As warriors they felt their inferiority to the
Shawanese and Indians of the Lakes, while their position was more
desperate, for the Choctaws and Cherokees behind them refused to join
in their war.
Four thousand warriors who had never seen a serious war even with
their Indian neighbors, and armed for the most part with clubs, or
bows-and-arrows, were not able to resist long the impact of three or
four armies, each nearly equal to their whole force, coming from every
quarter of the compass. On the other hand, the military difficulties
of conquering the Creeks were not trifling. The same obstacles that
stopped Harrison in Ohio, stopped Pinckney in Georgia. Pinckney,
like Harrison, could set in motion three columns of troops on three
converging lines, but he could not feed them or make roads for them.
The focus of Indian fanaticism was the Hickory Ground at the fork of
the Coosa and Tallapoosa, about one hundred and fifty miles distant
from the nearest point that would furnish supplies for an American army
coming from Georgia, Tennessee, or Mobile. Pinckney’s natural line of
attack was through Georgia to the Lower Creek towns and the American
forts on the Chattahoochee, whence he could move along a good road
about eighty miles to the Upper Creek towns, near the Hickory Ground.
The next convenient line was from Mobile up the Alabama River about one
hundred and fifty miles to the same point. The least convenient was the
pathless, mountainous, and barren region of Upper Alabama and Georgia,
through which an army from Tennessee must toil for at least a hundred
miles in order to reach an enemy.
The State of Georgia was most interested in the Creek war, and was
chiefly to profit by it. Georgia in 1813 had a white population of
about one hundred and twenty-five thousand, and a militia probably
numbering thirty thousand. Military District No. 6, embracing the two
Carolinas and Georgia, was supposed to contain two thousand regular
troops, and was commanded by Major-General Pinckney. Under Pinckney’s
command, a thousand regulars and three thousand militia, advancing from
Georgia by a good road eighty miles into the Indian country, should
have been able to end the Creek war within six months from the massacre
at Fort Mims; but for some reason the attempts on that side were not
so successful as they should have been, and were neither rapid nor
vigorous. Tennessee took the lead.
In respect of white population, the State of Tennessee was more than
double the size of Georgia; but it possessed a greater advantage in
Andrew Jackson, whose extreme energy was equivalent to the addition of
an army. When news of the Mims massacre reached Nashville about the
middle of September, Jackson was confined to his bed by a pistol-shot,
which had broken his arm and nearly cost his life ten days before in
a street brawl with Thomas H. Benton. From his bed he issued an order
calling back into service his two thousand volunteers of 1812; and
as early as October 12, little more than a month after the affair at
Fort Mims, he and his army of twenty-five hundred men were already
camped on the Tennessee River south of Huntsville in Alabama. There was
his necessary base of operations, but one hundred and sixty miles of
wilderness lay between him and the Hickory Ground.
On the Tennessee River Jackson’s position bore some resemblance to
that of Harrison on the Maumee a year before. Energy could not save him
from failure. Indeed, the greater his energy the more serious were his
difficulties. He depended on supplies from east Tennessee descending
the river; but the river was low, and the supplies could not be moved.
He had taken no measures to procure supplies from Nashville. Without
food and forage he could not safely advance, or even remain where he
was. Under such conditions, twenty-five hundred men with half as many
horses could not be kept together. Harrison under the same difficulties
held back his main force near its magazines till it disbanded, without
approaching within a hundred miles of its object. Jackson suffered
nearly the same fate. He sent away his mounted men under General Coffee
to forage on the banks of the Black Warrior River, fifty miles to the
southwest, where no Creeks were to be feared. He forced his infantry
forward through rough country some twenty miles, to a point where
the river made its most southern bend, and there, in the mountainous
defile, he established, October 23, a camp which he called Deposit,
where his supplies were to be brought when the river should permit.
Coffee’s mounted men returned October 24. Then, October 25, in the
hope of finding food as he went, Jackson plunged into the mountains
beyond the river, intending to make a raid, as far as he could, into
the Creek country. Except fatigue and famine, he had nothing to fear.
The larger Creek towns were a hundred miles to the southward, and
were busy with threatened attacks nearer home. After a week’s march
Jackson reached the upper waters of the Coosa. Within a short distance
were two or three small Creek villages. Against one of these Jackson
sent his mounted force, numbering nine hundred men, under General
Coffee. Early in the morning of November 3, Coffee surrounded and
destroyed Talishatchee. His report represented that the Indians made
an obstinate resistance.[340] “Not one of the warriors escaped to tell
the news,--a circumstance unknown heretofore.” According to Coffee’s
estimate, Talishatchee contained two hundred and eighty-four Indians of
both sexes and all ages. If one in three could be reckoned as capable
of bearing arms, the number of warriors was less than one hundred.
Coffee’s men after the battle counted one hundred and eighty-six dead
Indians, and estimated the total loss at two hundred. In every attack
on an Indian village a certain number of women and children were
necessarily victims, but the proportion at Talishatchee seemed large.
“I lost five men killed, and forty-one wounded,” reported
Coffee,--“none mortally, the greater part slightly, a number with
arrows. Two of the men killed was with arrows; this appears to form
a very principal part of the enemy’s arms for warfare, every man
having a bow with a bundle of arrows, which is used after the first
fire with the gun until a leisure time for loading offers.”
Meanwhile Jackson fortified a point on the Coosa, about thirty-five
miles from his base on the Tennessee, and named it Fort Strother.
There he expected to be joined by a division of east Tennessee militia
under General Cocke, approaching from Chattanooga, as he hoped, with
supplies; but while waiting, he received, November 7, a message from
Talladega, a Creek village thirty miles to the southward, reporting
that the town, which had refused to join the war-party, was besieged
and in danger of capture by a large body of hostile warriors. Jackson
instantly started to save Talladega, and marched twenty-four miles
November 8, surrounding and attacking the besieging Creeks the next
morning.
“The victory was very decisive,” reported Jackson to Governor
Blount,[341] November 11; “two hundred and ninety of the enemy were
left dead, and there can be no doubt but many more were killed who
were not found.... In the engagement we lost fifteen killed, and
eighty-five wounded.”
Coffee estimated the number of Indians, on their own report,[342] at
about one thousand. Jackson mentioned no wounded Indians, nor the
number of hostile Creeks engaged. Male Indians, except infants, were
invariably killed, and probably not more than five or six hundred were
in the battle, for Coffee thought very few escaped unhurt.
At Talladega Jackson was sixty miles from the Hickory Ground, and
still nearer to several large Indian towns, but he had already passed
the limit of his powers. News arrived that the army of eastern
Tennessee had turned eastward toward the Tallapoosa, and that his
expected supplies were as remote as ever. Returning to Fort Strother
November 10, Jackson waited there in forced inactivity, as Harrison had
waited at Fort Meigs, anxious only to avoid the disgrace of retreat.
For two weeks the army had lived on the Indians. A month more passed
in idle starvation, until after great efforts a supply train was
organized, and difficulties on that account ceased; but at the same
moment the army claimed discharge.
The claim was reasonable. Enlisted Dec. 10, 1812, for one year, the
men were entitled to their discharge Dec. 10, 1813. Had Jackson been
provided with fresh levies he would doubtless have dismissed the old;
but in his actual situation their departure would have left him at Fort
Strother to pass the winter alone. To prevent this, he insisted that
the men had no right to count as service, within the twelve months for
which they had enlisted, the months between May and October when they
were dismissed to their homes. The men, unanimous in their own view
of the contract, started to march home December 10; and Jackson, in a
paroxysm of anger, planted two small pieces of artillery in their path
and threatened to fire on them. The men, with good-temper, yielded for
the moment; and Jackson, quickly recognizing his helplessness, gave
way, and allowed them to depart December 12, with a vehement appeal
for volunteers who made no response.
Fort Strother was then held for a short time by east Tennessee militia,
about fourteen hundred in number, whose term of service was a few weeks
longer than that of the west Tennesseeans. Jackson could do nothing
with them, and remained idle. The Governor of Tennessee advised him to
withdraw to the State frontier; but Jackson, while admitting that his
campaign had failed, declared that he would perish before withdrawing
from the ground he considered himself to have gained.[343] Fortunately
he stood in no danger. The Creeks did not molest him, and he saw no
enemy within fifty miles.
While Jackson was thus brought to a stand-still, Major-General Cocke of
east Tennessee, under greater disadvantages, accomplished only results
annoying to Jackson. Cocke with twenty-five hundred three-months
militia took the field at Knoxville October 12, and moving by way
of Chattanooga reached the Coosa sixty or seventy miles above Camp
Strother. The nearest Creek Indians were the Hillabees, on a branch of
the Tallapoosa about sixty miles from Cocke’s position, and the same
distance from Jackson. The Hillabees, a group of four small villages,
numbered in 1800 one hundred and seventy warriors.[344] Unaware that
the Hillabees were making their submission to Jackson, and were to
receive his promise of protection, Cocke sent a large detachment, which
started November 12 into the Indian country, and surprised one of the
Hillabee villages November 18, massacring sixty-one warriors, and
capturing the other inmates, two hundred and fifty in number, without
losing a drop of blood or meeting any resistance.[345]
Jackson was already displeased with General Cocke’s conduct, and the
Hillabee massacre increased his anger. Cocke had intentionally kept
himself and his army at a distance in order to maintain an independent
command.[346] Not until Jackson’s troops disbanded and marched home,
December 12, did Cocke come to Fort Strother. There his troops remained
a month, guarding Jackson’s camp, until January 12, 1814, when their
three months’ term expired.
While five thousand men under Jackson and Cocke wandered about northern
Alabama, able to reach only small and remote villages, none of which
were actively concerned in the outbreak, the Georgians organized a
force to enter the heart of the Creek country. Brigadier-General
John Floyd commanded the Georgia army, and neither Major-General
Pinckney nor any United States troops belonged to it. Jackson’s battle
of Talladega was fought November 9; Cocke’s expedition against the
Hillabees started November 12, and surprised the Hillabee village
November 18. Floyd entered the hostile country November 24. The
Georgians though nearest were last to move, and moved with the weakest
force. Floyd had but nine hundred and forty militia, and three or four
hundred friendly warriors of the Lower Creek villages.
Floyd had heard that large numbers of hostile Indians were assembled
at Autossee,--a town on the Tallapoosa River near Tuckaubatchee, in
the centre of the Upper Creek country. He crossed the Chattahoochee
November 24 with five days rations, and marched directly against
Autossee, arriving within nine or ten miles without meeting resistance.
At half-past six on the morning of November 29 he formed his troops for
action in front of the town.[347]
The difference between the Northwestern Indians and the Creeks was
shown in the battle of Autossee compared with Tippecanoe. Floyd was
weaker than Harrison, having only militia and Indians, while Harrison
had a regular regiment composing one third of his rank-and-file.
The Creeks were probably more numerous than the Tippecanoe Indians,
although in both cases the numbers were quite unknown. Probably the
Creeks were less well armed, but they occupied a strong position and
stood on the defensive. Floyd reported that by nine o’clock he drove
the Indians from their towns and burned their houses,--supposed to be
four hundred in number. He estimated their loss at two hundred killed.
His own loss was eleven killed and fifty-four wounded. That of Harrison
at Tippecanoe was sixty-one killed or mortally wounded, and one hundred
and twenty-seven not fatally injured. The Creeks hardly inflicted one
fourth the loss caused by the followers of the Shawnee Prophet.
General Floyd,--himself among the severely wounded,--immediately after
the battle ordered the troops to begin their return march to the
Chattahoochee. The Georgia raid into the Indian country was bolder,
less costly, and more effective than the Tennessee campaign; but at
best it was only a raid, like the Indian assault on Fort Mims, and
offered no immediate prospect of regular military occupation. Another
attempt, from a third quarter, had the same unsatisfactory result.
The successor of General Wilkinson at New Orleans and Mobile, and in
Military District No. 7, was Brigadier-General Thomas Flournoy. Under
his direction an expedition was organized from Fort Stoddert, commanded
by Brigadier-General Claiborne of the Mississippi volunteers. Claiborne
was given the Third United States Infantry, with a number of militia,
volunteers, and Choctaw Indians,--in all about a thousand men. He
first marched to a point on the Alabama River, about eighty-five miles
above Fort Stoddert, where he constructed a military post, called Fort
Claiborne. Having established his base there, he marched, December 13,
up the river till he reached, December 23, the Holy Ground, where the
half-breed Weatherford lived. There Claiborne approached within about
fifty miles of the point which Floyd reached a month before, but for
want of co-operation he could not maintain his advantage. He attacked
and captured Weatherford’s town, killing thirty Indians, with a loss of
one man; but after destroying the place he retreated, arriving unharmed
at Fort Claiborne, on the last day of the year.
Thus the year 1813 ended without closing the Creek war. More than seven
thousand men had entered the Indian country from four directions; and
with a loss of thirty or forty lives had killed, according to their
reports, about eight hundred Indians, or one fifth of the hostile Creek
warriors; but this carnage had fallen chiefly on towns and villages
not responsible for the revolt. The true fanatics were little harmed,
and could offer nearly as much resistance as ever. The failure and
excessive expense of the campaign were the more annoying, because they
seemed beyond proportion to the military strength of the fanatics.
Major-General Pinckney wrote to the War Department at the close of the
year:[348]--
“The force of the hostile Creeks was estimated by the best judges
to have consisted of three thousand five hundred warriors; of these
it is apprehended that about one thousand have been put _hors de
combat_.”
To Andrew Jackson, Pinckney wrote, Jan. 19, 1814,[349]
“Your letter, dated December 26, did not reach me until the last
evening. Your preceding dispatches of December 14 had led me to
conclude what would probably soon be the diminished state of your
force. I therefore immediately ordered to your support Colonel
Williams’s regiment of twelve-months men, and wrote to the Governor
of Tennessee urging him to complete the requisition of fifteen
hundred for the time authorized by law. I learn from the person who
brought your letter that Colonel Williams’s regiment is marching
to join you; if the fifteen hundred of the quota should also be
furnished by Governor Blount, you will in my opinion have force
sufficient for the object to be attained. The largest computation
that I have heard of the hostile Creek warriors, made by any
competent judge, is four thousand. At least one thousand of them
have been killed or disabled; they are badly armed and supplied
with ammunition; little doubt can exist that two thousand of our
men would be infinitely superior to any number they can collect.”
Jackson at Fort Strother on the departure of the east Tennesseeans,
January 14, received a reinforcement of sixty-day militia, barely
nine hundred in number.[350] Determined to use them to the utmost,
Jackson started three days afterward to co-operate with General Floyd
in an attack on the Tallapoosa villages, aiming at a town called
Emuckfaw, some forty miles north of Tuckaubatchee. The movement was
much more dangerous than any he had yet attempted. His own force
was fresh, motley, and weak, numbering only nine hundred and thirty
militia, including “a company of volunteer officers headed by General
Coffee, who had been abandoned by his men,” and assisted by two or
three hundred friendly Creeks and Cherokees. The sixty-day militia
were insubordinate and unsteady, the march was long, and the Creek
towns at which he aimed were relatively large. Emuckfaw was one
of seven villages belonging to Ocfuskee, the largest town in the
Creek nation,--in 1800 supposed to contain four hundred and fifty
warriors.[351]
As far as Enotachopco Creek, twelve miles from Emuckfaw, Jackson had no
great danger to fear; but beyond that point he marched with caution.
At daylight, January 22, the Indians, who were strongly encamped at
about three miles distance, made an attack on Jackson’s camp, which
was repulsed after half an hour’s fighting. Jackson then sent Coffee
with four hundred men to burn the Indian camp, but Coffee returned
without attempting it. “On viewing the encampment and its strength the
General thought it most prudent to return to my encampment,” reported
Jackson.[352] Immediately after Coffee’s return the Indians again
attacked, and Coffee sallied out to turn their flank, followed by not
more than fifty-four men. The Indians were again repulsed with a loss
of forty-five killed, but Coffee was severely wounded, and Jackson
“determined to commence a return march to Fort Strother the following
day.”
At that moment Jackson’s situation was not unlike that of Harrison
after the battle of Tippecanoe, and he escaped less happily.
Fortifying his camp, he remained during the night of January 22
undisturbed. At half-past ten, January 23, he began his return march,
“and was fortunate enough to reach Enotachopco before night, having
passed without interruption a dangerous defile occasioned by a
hurricane.”[353] Enotachopco Creek was twelve or fifteen miles from
Emuckfaw Creek, and the Hillabee towns were about the same distance
beyond.
At Enotachopco Jackson again fortified his camp. His position was such
as required the utmost caution in remaining or moving. So hazardous was
the passage of the deep creek and the defile beyond, through which the
army had marched in its advance, that Jackson did not venture to return
by the same path, but on the morning of January 24 began cautiously
crossing the creek at a safer point:--
“The front guard had crossed with part of the flank columns,
the wounded were over, and the artillery in the act of entering
the creek, when an alarm-gun was heard in the woods.... To my
astonishment and mortification, when the word was given by Colonel
Carrol to halt and form, and a few guns had been fired, I beheld
the right and left columns of the rear guard precipitately give
way. This shameful retreat was disastrous in the extreme; it drew
along with it the greater part of the centre column, leaving not
more than twenty-five men, who being formed by Colonel Carrol
maintained their ground as long as it was possible to maintain
it, and it brought consternation and confusion into the centre of
the army,--a consternation which was not easily removed, and a
confusion which could not soon be restored to order.”[354]
The Indians were either weak or ignorant of warfare, for they failed to
take advantage of the panic, and allowed themselves to be driven away
by a handful of men. Jackson’s troops escaped unharmed, or but little
injured, their loss in the engagements of January 22 and 24 being
twenty-four men killed and seventy-one wounded. Probably the Creek
force consisted of the Ocfuskee warriors, and numbered about half that
of Jackson.[355] Coffee supposed them to be eight hundred or a thousand
in number, but the exaggeration in estimating Indian forces was always
greater than in estimating white enemies in battle. An allowance of
one third was commonly needed for exaggeration in reported numbers of
European combatants; an allowance of one half was not unreasonable in
estimates of Indian forces.
In letting Jackson escape from Emuckfaw the Creeks lost their single
opportunity. Jackson never repeated the experiment. He arrived at
Fort Strother in safety January 29, and did not again leave his
intrenchment until the middle of March, under much better conditions.
General Floyd was no more successful. Jackson started from Fort
Strother for Emuckfaw January 17; Floyd left Fort Mitchell, on the
Chattahoochee, January 18, for Tuckaubatchee, only forty miles south
of Emuckfaw.[356] Floyd’s army, like Jackson’s, was partly composed
of militia and partly of Lower Creek warriors, in all about seventeen
hundred men, including four hundred friendly Creeks. From the best
information to be obtained at the time, the effective strength of
the hostile Indians did not then exceed two thousand warriors,[357]
scattered along the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers; while experience
proved the difficulty of concentrating large bodies of Indians, even
when supplies were furnished them. The British commissariat in Canada
constantly issued from five to ten thousand rations for Indians and
their families, but Proctor never brought more than fifteen hundred
warriors into battle. The Creeks, as far as was known, never numbered a
thousand warriors in any battle during the war. Floyd, with seventeen
hundred men well armed, was able to face the whole Creek nation, and
meant to move forward, fortifying military posts at each day’s march,
until he should establish himself on the Tallapoosa in the centre of
the Creek towns, and wait for a junction with Jackson.
When Jackson was repulsed at Emuckfaw January 22, Floyd was about forty
miles to the southward, expecting to draw the chief attack of the
Indians. Having advanced forty-eight miles from the Chattahoochee he
arrived at a point about seven or eight miles south of Tuckaubatchee,
where he fortified, on Calibee Creek, a camp called Defiance. There,
before daybreak on the morning of January 27, he was sharply attacked,
as Harrison was attacked at Tippecanoe, and with the same result. The
attack was repulsed, but Floyd lost twenty-two killed and one hundred
and forty-seven wounded,--the largest number of casualties that had
yet occurred in the Indian war. The Indians “left thirty-seven dead on
the field; from the effusion of blood and the number of head-dresses
and war-clubs found in various directions, their loss must have been
considerable independent of their wounded.”[358]
The battle of Calibee Creek, January 27, was in substance a defeat
to Floyd. So decided were his militia in their determination to go
home, that he abandoned all his fortified posts and fell back to
the Chattahoochee, where he arrived February 1, four days after the
battle.[359]
Six months had then elapsed since the outbreak of hostilities at Burnt
Corn; a year since the Little Warrior murders on the Ohio River, yet
not a post had been permanently occupied within eighty miles of the
fanatical centre at the fork of the Coosa and Tallapoosa.
Pinckney was obliged to apply to the governors of North and South
Carolina to furnish him with men and equipments. The Governor of
Georgia also exerted himself to supply the deficiencies of the national
magazines.[360] By their aid Pinckney was able to collect an army with
which to make another and a decisive movement into the Creek country:
but before he could act, Jackson succeeded in striking a final blow.
Jackson’s success in overcoming the obstacles in his path was due to
his obstinacy in insisting on maintaining himself at Fort Strother,
which obliged Governor Blount to order out four thousand more militia
in January for six months. Perhaps this force alone would have been
no more effectual in 1814 than in 1813, but another reinforcement was
decisive. The Thirty-ninth regiment of the regular army, authorized
by the Act of January 29, 1813, had been officered and recruited
in Tennessee, and was still in the State. Major-General Pinckney
sent orders, Dec. 23, 1813, to its colonel, John Williams, to join
Jackson.[361] The arrival of the Thirty-ninth regiment February 6,
1814, gave Jackson the means of coping with his militia. February 21
he wrote to his quartermaster, Major Lewis, that he meant to use his
regulars first to discipline his own army.[362] “I am truly happy in
having the Colonel [Williams] with me. His regiment will give strength
to my arm, and quell mutiny.” His patience with militia-men had been
long exhausted, and he meant to make a warning of the next mutineer.
The first victim was no less a person than Major-General Cocke of the
east Tennessee militia. Cocke’s division of two thousand men, mustered
for six months, began January 17 its march from Knoxville to Fort
Strother.[363] Learning on the march that the west Tennessee division,
mustered at the same time for the same service, had been accepted to
serve only three months, Cocke’s men mutinied, and Cocke tried to
pacify them by a friendly speech. Jackson, learning what had passed,
despatched a sharp order to one of Cocke’s brigadiers to arrest and
send under guard to Fort Strother every officer of whatever rank who
should be found exciting the men to mutiny. Cocke was put under arrest
when almost in sight of the enemy’s country; his sword was taken from
him, and he was sent to Nashville for trial.[364] His division came to
Fort Strother, and said no more about its term of service.
Having dealt thus with the officers, Jackson selected at leisure a test
of strength with the men. The conduct of the Fayetteville company of
the Twenty-eighth regiment of west Tennessee light infantry gave him
ground for displeasure. Not only had they refused to obey the call
for six months’ service and insisted on serving for three months or
not at all, but they had halted on their march, and had sent their
commanding officer to bargain with Jackson for his express adhesion
to their terms. Learning that Jackson made difficulties, they marched
home without waiting for an official reply. Jackson ordered the whole
body to be arrested as deserters, accompanying his order by an offer of
pardon to such as returned to duty on their own understanding of the
term of service. The company was again mustered, and arrived at Fort
Strother not long after the arrival of the Thirty-ninth United States
Infantry.
A few weeks later an unfortunate private of the same company, named
Woods, refused to obey the officer of the day, and threatened to shoot
any man who arrested him. Jackson instantly called a court-martial,
tried and sentenced Woods, and March 14 caused him to be shot. The
execution was a harsh measure; but Jackson gave to it a peculiar
character by issuing a general order in which he misstated facts
that made Wood’s case exceptional,[365] in order to let the company
understand that their comrade was suffering the penalty which they all
deserved.
Without giving his army time to brood over this severity, Jackson
ordered a general movement, and within forty-eight hours after Woods’s
execution, all were well on their way toward the enemy. Jackson had
with him about five thousand men, four fifths of whom expected their
discharge in a month. He left them not a day’s repose.
Two lines of advance were open to him in approaching the fork of the
Coosa and Tallapoosa, which was always the objective point. He might
descend the Coosa, or cross to the Tallapoosa by the way he had taken
in January. He descended the Coosa thirty miles, and then struck a
sudden blow at the Tallapoosa towns.
The Ocfuskee Indians, elated by their success in January, collected
their whole force, with that of some neighboring towns, in a bend of
the Tallapoosa, where they built a sort of fortress by constructing
across the neck of the Horse-shoe a breastwork composed of five large
logs, one above the other, with two ranges of port-holes.[366] The
interior was covered with trees and fallen timber along the river side,
and caves were dug in the bank. Seven or eight hundred Indian warriors
together with many women and children were within the enclosure of
eighty or a hundred acres.
Jackson, after leaving a garrison at a new fort which he constructed
on the Coosa, about half way to the Horse-shoe, had somewhat less
than three thousand effectives.[367] With these he camped, on the
evening of March 28, about six miles northwest of the bend, and the
next morning advanced to attack it. “Determined to exterminate them,”
he reported,[368] he detached Coffee with the mounted force of seven
hundred men and six hundred friendly Indians[369] to surround the bend,
along the river bank, while Jackson himself with all his infantry took
position before the breastwork. At half-past ten o’clock he planted his
cannon about two hundred yards[370] from the centre of the work, and
began a rapid fire of artillery and musketry, which continued for two
hours without producing apparent effect. Meanwhile the Cherokee allies
swam the river in the rear of the Creek warriors, who were all at the
breastwork, and seizing canoes, brought some two hundred Indians and
whites into the Horse-shoe, where they climbed the high ground in the
rear of the breastwork and fired on the Creeks, who were occupied in
defending their front.
Jackson then ordered an assault on the breastwork, which was carried,
with considerable loss, by the Thirty-ninth regiment, in the centre.
The Creeks sought shelter in the thickets and under the bluffs, where
they were hunted or burned out, and killed. “The slaughter was greater
than all we had done before,” wrote Coffee; it was continued all day
and the next morning. When the Horse-shoe had been thoroughly cleared,
five hundred and fifty-seven dead bodies were counted within the bend;
many were killed in the river, and about twenty were supposed to have
escaped. According to Coffee, “we killed not less than eight hundred
and fifty or nine hundred of them, and took about five hundred squaws
and children prisoners.” The proportion of squaws and children to the
whole number of Indians showed the probable proportion of warriors
among the dead. “I lament that two or three women and children were
killed by accident,” reported Jackson.[371]
Jackson’s loss was chiefly confined to the Thirty-ninth regiment and
the friendly Indians, who were most actively engaged in the storm.
The Thirty-ninth lost twenty killed and fifty-two wounded. Among the
severely wounded was Ensign Samuel Houston, struck by an arrow in the
thigh. The major and two lieutenants were killed. The Cherokees lost
eighteen killed and thirty-five wounded. The friendly Creeks lost five
killed and eleven wounded. The Tennessee militia, comprising two thirds
of the army, lost only eight killed and fifty-two wounded. The total
loss was fifty-one killed and one hundred and forty-eight wounded.
Jackson’s policy of extermination shocked many humane Americans, and
would perhaps have seemed less repulsive had the Creeks shown more
capacity for resistance. The proportion between two hundred casualties
on one side and seven or eight hundred killed on the other would have
been striking in any case, but was especially so where the advantages
of position were on the side of the defence. A more serious criticism
was that the towns thus exterminated were not the towns chiefly
responsible for the outbreak. The Alabamas and the main body of
fanatical Creeks escaped.
Jackson was obliged to return to his new fort on the Coosa, a march of
five days; and was delayed five days more by preparations to descend
the river. When at length he moved southward, scouring the country as
he went, he could find no more enemies. He effected his junction with
the Georgia troops April 15, and the united armies reached the fork of
the Coosa and Tallapoosa April 18, where Major-General Pinckney joined
them, April 20, and took command;[372] but the Red Sticks had then fled
southward. A few of the hostile leaders, including Weatherford, made
submission, but McQueen and the chief prophets escaped to continue the
war from Florida. The friendly Creeks did not consider the war to be
finished; they reported to Hawkins[373]--
“They did not believe the hostile Indians were ready for peace,
although a part of them had suffered so severely in battle against
our armies. They were proud, haughty, brave, and mad by fanaticism.
Those of the towns of Tallapoosa below Tuckaubatchee and Alabama
had suffered the least, although they were the most culpable; and
it was probable they would mistake our object in offering terms of
peace to them.”
The number of refugees was never precisely known, but Hawkins reported
that eight of the Tallapoosa towns had migrated in a body to Spanish
territory,[374] and probably a larger proportion of the Coosa and
Alabama towns accompanied them. The Indians themselves gave out that a
few more than a thousand Red Stick warriors survived, who meant to die
fighting. In May the British admiral Cochrane sent Captain Pigot of the
“Orpheus” to the Appalachicola to communicate with the refugee Creek
Indians and supply them with arms. Pigot received ten of the principal
chiefs on board his vessel May 20, and reported[375] on their authority
that “the number of the warriors of the Creek Nation friendly to the
English and ready to take up arms was about twenty-eight hundred,
exclusive of one thousand unarmed warriors who had been driven by the
Americans from their towns into the marshes near Pensacola, and who
were expected to rejoin the main body.” The Creek warriors friendly to
the Americans were estimated at about twelve hundred, and the fugitive
Red Sticks at one thousand. Whatever their number, they included the
most fanatical followers of Tecumthe, and their obstinate outlawry
caused long and costly difficulties to the United States government.
Meanwhile the whites were conquerors and could take as much of the
Creek lands as suited them; but an irregularity of form could not
be avoided. Secretary Armstrong first authorized General Pinckney
to conclude a treaty of peace with the hostile Creeks, containing a
cession of land and other provisions.[376] A few days later Armstrong
saw reason to prefer that the proposed treaty with the Creeks
should take a form altogether military, and be in the nature of a
capitulation.[377] His idea required a treaty with the hostile Creek
chiefs;[378] but the hostile Creeks were not a separate organization
capable of making a treaty or granting lands of the Creek nation; and
besides that difficulty the hostile chiefs had fled, and refused either
to submit or negotiate. No chiefs remained except among the friendly
Creeks, who could not capitulate because they had never been at war.
They had fought in the United States service and were entitled to
reward as allies, not to punishment as enemies.
The solution of this legal problem was entrusted to Andrew Jackson,
whose services in the war earned for him the appointment of
major-general in the regular army, and the command of Military District
No. 7, with headquarters at Mobile. Jackson met the Creek chiefs in
July. The Indians, parties to the negotiation, were friendly chiefs,
deputies, and warriors, representing perhaps one third of the entire
Creek nation. To these allies and friends Jackson presented a paper,
originally intended for the hostile Indians, entitled “Articles of
Agreement and Capitulation,” requiring as indemnity for war expenses
a surrender of two thirds of their territory. They were required to
withdraw from the southern and western half of Alabama, within the
Chattahoochee on the east and the Coosa on the west. The military
object of this policy was to isolate them from the Seminoles and
Spaniards on one side, and from the Choctaws and Chickasaws on
the other. The political object was to surround them with a white
population.
Unanimously the Creeks refused to accept the sacrifice. Jackson told
them in reply that their refusal would show them to be enemies of the
United States; that they might retain their own part of the country,
but that the part which belonged to the hostile Indians would be taken
by the government; and that the chiefs who would not consent to sign
the paper might join the Red Sticks at Pensacola,--although, added
Jackson, he should probably overtake and destroy them before they could
get there. Such arguments could not be answered. A number of the Creeks
at last, after long resistance, signed the capitulation or agreement,
although they continued to protest against it, and refused their aid to
carry it out.
Jackson’s capitulation of Aug. 9, 1814,[379] which, without closing
the Creek war, appropriated to the government the larger part of the
Creek lands, was nearly simultaneous with a treaty[380] signed July 22
by William Henry Harrison and Lewis Cass, at Greenville in Ohio, with
chiefs of the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanese, Senecas, and Miamis. This
treaty contained no land-cession, but established peace between the
parties, and obliged the Indian signers to declare war on the British.
Neither Harrison’s nor Jackson’s treaty embraced the chief body of
hostile Indians; but Harrison’s treaty served another purpose of no
small value in appearing to remove an obstacle to negotiation with
England.