Hitherto, in the course of our narrative, we have only observed hints of hostile operations in the more southern portion of the republic, beginning with the endeavors of Tecumtha to induce the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and other tribes in the Gulf region 1 to become a part of his great Indian Confederacy against the white people. We have now reached a point in the story where a consideration of the events of the war in that region is necessary to the unity of the history.

In a former chapter we have considered the purchase by and cession to the United States of the vast Territory known as Louisiana. 2 Eastward of that Territory, at the time of the breaking out of the war in 1812, and bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, was a region in possession of the Spaniards, known as East and West Florida. The former extended from the Perdido River (now the boundary-line between the states of Florida and Alabama) eastward to the Atlantic Ocean, including the great peninsula lying south of Georgia, and stretching over almost six degrees of latitude. The latter extended westward from the Perdido to (as the Spaniards claimed) the island of Orleans, on the Mississippi. The northern boundary was partly on and partly a little below the thirty-first parallel.

During the autumn of 1810, and winter of 1810 and 1811, movements were inaugurated which finally led to the absolute possession of both Floridas by the United States. In October, that portion of the claimed Spanish territory lying on the Mississippi became the theatre of insurrectionary operations. It was inhabited chiefly by persons of British and American birth. These seized the old fort at Baton Rouge; met in Convention; declared themselves independent of Spain; and adopted a flag with a lone star upon it, as the revolutionists in Texas did many years later. 3 The Spanish Loyalists made slight resistance, but it was soon overcome; and the insurgents asked the government of the United States to give them aid and recognition. Already that government had claimed a right, under the act of cession, to the entire Territory of West Florida, and that claim was a topic for dispute between it and that of Spain. Instead, therefore, of countenancing the insurgents in their efforts to set up for themselves, the President issued a proclamation on the 27th of October, in which he declared the Territory of West Florida, as far east as the Pearl River, to be in the possession of the United States. W. C. C. Claiborne, the governor of the Orleans Territory (afterward called the State of Louisiana), then in Washington, was hurried off to take possession of it, avowedly not only as a right, but as a friendly act toward Spain, whose rights were as much jeoparded by the revolutionary movement as was those of the United States. Claiborne was clothed with powers to employ troops then in the Mississippi Territory, if necessary, to enable him to take and hold possession of the country.

Not long after this, a body of men, chiefly Americans from Fort Stoddart, on the Mobile River, led by Colonel Reuben Kemper, who professed to be acting under the authority of the Florida insurgents, menaced the port of Mobile. 4 They were driven away, but still threatened that post; and the Spanish governor, Folch, thoroughly alarmed, wrote a letter to Mr. Monroe, the American Secretary of State, in which he expressed a desire, in the event of his not being speedily re-enforced from Havana or Vera Cruz, to treat for the surrender of the whole province of Florida. At about the same time, Morier, the British Chargé d’Affaires, residing at Baltimore, formally protested against such acquisition on the part of the United States as an act unfriendly to Spain, then struggling with the gigantic power of Napoleon.

On the 17th of March [1812.] the insurgents, two hundred and twenty in number, sent a flag of truce to Fernandina demanding the surrender of the town and island. The American gun-boats came down at about the same time. The authorities bowed in submission, and General Mathews, assuming the character of a protector, took possession of the place in the name of the United States. Commodore Campbell declared, in a letter to Don Justo Lopez, the commandant of Amelia Island, that the naval forces were not intended to act in the name of the United States, "but to aid and support," he said, "a large proportion of your countrymen in arms, who have thought proper to declare themselves independent." 5

A flag was raised over Fernandina on which were inscribed the words "Vox populi lex salutis," and on the 19th the town was formally given up to the United States authorities. A custom-house was immediately established; the floating property in the harbor was considered under the protection of the United States flag, and smuggling ceased. Then the insurgents, made eight hundred strong by re-enforcements from Georgia, and accompanied by some troops furnished by General Mathews, besieged the Spanish governor in St. Augustine, for it was feared that the British might help the Spaniards in recovering what they had lost in the Territory. This was a kind of filibustering which the United States government would not countenance, and David B. Mitchell, 6 governor of Georgia, was appointed to supersede Mathews [April 10, 1812.] as commissioner. But the change of men did not effect a change of measures. Mitchell believed that Congress would sanction Mathews’s proceedings. The Lower House did actually pass a bill [June 21.], in secret session, authorizing the President to take possession of East Florida. The Senate rejected it, for it was not desirable, at the moment when war had been declared against Great Britain, to provoke hostilities with another power unnecessarily. There was inconsistency in it, which the Opposition were not slow to perceive and make use of. "Say nothing now," they said, "about Sir James Craig, of Canada, and John Henry, 7 or Copenhagen." 8 They denounced the whole movement of the government in Florida, East and West, as dastardly – a seizure of the possessions of a friendly power "by Madison’s army and navy."

The troops from New Orleans arrived in Mobile Bay on the 12th of April [1812.], and at two o’clock the next morning landed opposite the site of the Pavilion, not far from the fort, then commanded by Captain Cayetano Perez. 9 The garrison was surprised. The first intimation given them of the presence of an enemy was the sounding of Wilkinson’s bugles for an advance. Six hundred men, in column, appeared before Fort Charlotte at noon, and demanded its surrender. The negotiations to that end were short, and on the 15th the Spaniards evacuated the fort and retired to Pensacola. The Americans at once entered, took possession, and proceeded to strengthen the post. Wilkinson sent nine pieces of artillery to Mobile Point, which were placed in battery there, and, marching to the Perdido, began the construction of fortifications there under the superintendence of Colonel John Bowyer. This work was soon abandoned, and Fort Bowyer was commenced on Mobile Point by some workmen under Captain Reuben Chamberlain. Such was the beginning of movements which resulted in the acquisition of all Florida by the Americans.

When the war broke out there was an already famous militia general in Tennessee, well known all over the settled portion of the Mississippi Basin. It was Andrew Jackson, who, as we have observed, became somewhat entangled in the toils of the wily spider, Aaron Burr, for a while. 10 He was living on a fine plantation a few miles from Nashville.

War was declared on the 19th of June by the proclamation of the President. Tidings of it reached Jackson on the 26th, and on the same day he authorized Governor Blount to tender to the President of the United States the services of himself and twenty-five hundred men of his division as volunteers for the war. Under other circumstances the offer would have been rejected. Jackson was no "court favorite;" on the contrary, he was obnoxious to the President and his Cabinet. He had soundly berated the government, when Madison was chief minister, in a speech in the streets of Richmond, as the "persecutor of Aaron Burr." He had openly shown his preference for Monroe over Madison, and had called the Secretary of War an "old granny." But the government needed strength, and was not willing to reject any that might be offered. The President received Jackson’s generous offer with gratitude, and accepted it, he said, "with peculiar satisfaction." The Secretary of War wrote a cordial letter of acceptance to Governor Blount [April 11, 1812.], and that officer publicly thanked Jackson and his volunteers for the honor they had done the State of Tennessee by their patriotic movement. 11

Meanwhile Jackson had written fiery letters to the President, the Secretary of War, Governor Blount, and General Wilkinson. 12 He despised the latter, and suspected him of sinister designs; and when, in due time, he received a reply from that officer, in which he suggested that great public service might be rendered by promoting enlistments into the regular army, Jackson’s anger knew no bounds. He watched for recruiting officers with hawk-eyed vigilance, and when one was found in his camp, he notified him that if he should catch him trying to seduce one of his volunteers into the regular army, he would have him instantly drummed beyond his lines. 13 The Secretary of War, on the other hand, by a courteous and explanatory letter, mollified his passion by assuring him that when he wrote the letter that appeared so cruel, he did not suppose that the little army had moved far from Nashville.

Finally, on the borders of his state, Jackson sent a messenger to Washington to convey an offer of the services of himself and volunteers on the Northern frontier, whither Harrison had been sent as chief commander. No response came, and on the 22d of May he drew up his detachment on the public square in Nashville, where they were presented with an elegantly wrought stand of colors, by the ladies of Knoxville. 14 There they were dismissed, and dispersed to their homes with feelings of great dissatisfaction toward the national government.

In the autumn of 1812, after the surrender of Detroit and the Michigan Territory promised long quiet on that frontier, Tecumtha went again to the Gulf region. He took his brother, the Prophet, with him, partly to employ him as an instrument in managing the superstitions of the Indians, and partly to prevent his doing mischief at home. They were accompanied by about thirty warriors. The Choctaws and Chickasaws, among whom they passed on their way, would not listen favorably to Tecumtha’s seductive words; but the Seminoles in Florida and Georgia, and the Creeks in Alabama, lent to him willing ears. He was among the latter in October, where he crossed the Alabama River at Autauga, in the lower part of the present Autauga County, and there addressed the assembled Creeks for the first time. His eloquence, his patriotic appeals, and his fame as a warrior won him many followers, and with these and his own retinue he went on to Coosawda on the Alabama, 15 and at the Hickory Ground addressed a large concourse of warriors who had flocked to see and hear the mighty Shawnoese, whose exploits in the buffalo-chase, on the war-path, and in the council had filled their ears, even in boyhood, with wondrous tales of achievements won. It was a successful day, and Tecumtha was greatly encouraged. He crossed the Coosa, and went boldly forward in the direction of the great falls of the Tallapoosa (in the southwest part of the present Tallapoosa County) to Toockabatcha, the ancient Creek capital, where Colonel Hawkins, the United States Indian Agent, had called a great council of the Creeks. Hawkins was highly esteemed by them, and at his call full five thousand Indians responded in person, besides many negroes and white people mingled with them.

Tecumtha approached this great gathering with well-feigned modesty. He kept at the outer circle of spectators until the conclusion of the agent’s first day’s address, when, at the head of his thirty followers from the Ohio region, he marched with dignity into the square, all of them entirely naked excepting their flaps and ornaments. Their faces were painted black, and their heads were adorned with eagles’ feathers, while buffalo tails dragged behind, suspended by bands around their waists. Like appendages were attached to their arms, and their whole appearance was as hideous as possible, and their bearing uncommonly pompous and ceremonious. They marched round and round in the square, and then, approaching the Creek chiefs, they cordially gave them the Indian salutation of a shake at arm’s length, and exchanged tobacco in token of friendship. Only one chief (Captain Isaac, of Coosawda) refused to greet Tecumtha. On his head were a pair of buffalo horns, and these he shook at the Shawnoese visitor with contempt, for he said Tecumtha was a bad man, and no greater than he. 16

Tecumtha, full of encouragement, went forth, visiting all of the important Creek towns, and enlisting many recruits for the British cause. Among the most distinguished of these was Weathersford, a powerful, handsome, sagacious, brave, and eloquent half-blooded chief. But others equally eminent withstood the persuasions of the great Shawnoese. One of the most conspicuous of these was the Big Warrior of Toockabatcha, whose name was Tustinuggee-Thlucco. Tecumtha was extremely anxious to win him, but the Big Warrior remained true to the United States. At length the angry Shawnoese said, with vehemence, as he pointed his finger in the Big Warrior’s face, "Tustinuggee-Thlucco, your blood is white. You have taken my red-sticks and my talk, but you do not mean to fight. I know the reason. You do not believe the Great Spirit has sent me. You shall believe it. I will leave directly, and go straight to Detroit. When I get there I will stamp my foot upon the ground, and shake down every house in Toockabatcha!" The Big Warrior said nothing, but long pondered this remarkable speech. 17

It was, indeed, a remarkable speech. Events soon proved it to be prophetic. Natural phenomena – one that might be foretold by astronomers, and the other always beyond the knowledge of mortals – combined to give tremendous effect to Tecumtha’s words and mission. The comet, the blazing "arm of Tecumtha" in the sky, appeared; and at about the time when the common Indians, who believed in the great Shawnoese and his mystical brother, knew, by calculation, that Tecumtha must have arrived at Detroit, there was heard a deep rumbling beneath the ground, and a heaving of the earth that made the houses of Toockabatcha reel and totter as if about to fall. The startled savages ran out of their huts, exclaiming, "Tecumtha is at Detroit! Tecumtha is at Detroit! We feel the stamp of his foot!" It was the shock of an earthquake that was felt all over the Gulf region in December, 1812. 18 But it did not move the Big Warrior from his allegiance.

Tecumtha’s visit proved to be a most sad one for the Creeks as a nation. It brought terrible calamities upon them – first in the form of civil war, and then in almost utter destruction at the hands of the exasperated Americans. He left seeds of discontent to germinate and expand into violent agitations. Chief was arrayed against chief; and family against family, on the question of peace or war with the Americans. They were strong as a nation, numbering about thirty thousand souls, of whom at least seven thousand were warriors; yet peace was the guarantee of their existence. They were hemmed in by powerful and rapidly-increasing communities of white people, and between them and the Northern tribes were the Choctaws and Chickasaws, 19 over whom that grand old patriot, General James Robertson, held a powerful sway, like that of a kind father over loving children. 20

On account of the civil war raging here, and there, and every where in the Creek country, the white settlers were placed in great peril. In the spring of 1813 they were made to expect an exterminating blow. They knew that a British squadron was in the Gulf; and in friendly intercourse with the Spanish post at Pensacola. They knew that the fiery M‘Queen and other leaders had gone to that post with about three hundred and fifty warriors, with many pack-horses, intended doubtless for the conveyance of arms and supplies from the British to the war-party in the interior. Every day the cloud of danger palpably thickened, and the inhabitants of the most populous and more immediately threatened districts of the Tombigbee and Tensaw petitioned the governor of Mississippi for a military force sufficient for their protection. The governor was willing, but General Flournoy, who succeeded General Wilkinson in command of the Seventh Military District, persuaded by Colonel Hawkins, the Indian agent, of the civilization and friendly disposition of the Creeks, would not grant their prayer. 21

On the morning of the 27th Caller reorganized his command. Captains Phillips, M‘Farlane, Wood, and Jourdan were appointed majors, and Captain William M‘Grew was created lieutenant colonel. 22 They were now on the main route for Pensacola, and were moving cheerily forward, down the east side of Burnt Corn Creek, when a company of fifteen spies, under Captain Dale, who had been sent in advance to reconnoitre, came galloping hurriedly back with the intelligence that M‘Queen and his party were only a few miles distant, encamped upon a peninsula of low pine barrens formed by the windings of Burnt Corn Creek, engaged unsuspectingly in cooking and eating. A hurried council was held, and it was determined to attack them. For this purpose Caller arranged his men in three columns, the right led by Captain Smoot, the left by Captain Dale, and the centre by Captain Bailey. They were upon a gentle height overlooking M‘Queen’s camp, and down its slopes the white men moved rapidly, and fell upon the foe. M‘Queen and his party were surprised. They fought desperately for a few minutes, when they gave way, and fled toward the creek, followed by a portion of the assailants.

Colonel Caller was brave but overcautious, and called back the pursuers. The remainder of his command were engaged in capturing the well-laden pack-horses of the enemy, and when those in advance came running back, the former, panic-stricken, turned and fled in confusion, but carrying away their plunder. Now the tide turned. M‘Queen’s Indians rushed from their hiding-places in a cane-brake with horrid yells, and fell upon less than one hundred of Caller’s men at the foot of the eminence. A severe battle ensued. Captain Dale was severely wounded by a ball that struck his breast-bone, followed the ribs around, and came out near the spine, yet he continued to fight as long as any body. Overwhelming numbers at length compelled him and his companions to retreat. They fled in disorder, many of them leaving their horses behind them. The flight continued all night in much confusion. The victory in the Battle of Burnt Corn Creek – the first in the Creek war – rested with the Indians. Only two of Caller’s command were killed, and fifteen wounded. The casualties of the enemy are unknown. For some time it was supposed that Colonel Caller and Major Wood had been lost. They became bewildered in the forest, and wandered about there some time. When they were found they were almost starved, and were nearly senseless. They had been missing fifteen days! Caller’s command never reassembled. M‘Queen’s retraced their steps to Pensacola for more military supplies. 23 But for the fatal word "retreat" the Indians might have been scattered to the winds. While these events were transpiring in the Indian country above Mobile, General F. L. Claiborne, 24 who had been a gallant soldier in Wayne’s army in the Indian country north of the Ohio, was marching, by orders of General Flournoy, from Baton Rouge to Fort Stoddart, on the Mobile River, with instructions to direct his principal attentions to the defense of Mobile. He reached Mount Vernon, in the northern part of the present Mobile County, three days after the battle of Burnt Corn Creek [July 30, 1813.]. He found the whole population trembling with alarm and terrible forebodings of evil. Already a chain of rude defenses, called forts, had been built in the country between the Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers, a short distance from their confluence where they form the Mobile River, 25 and were filled with affrighted white people and negroes, who had sought shelter in them from the impending storm of war.

Previous to Claiborne’s arrival, wealthy half-blood families had gone down the Alabama in boats and canoes, and secreted themselves in the thick swamps around Tensaw Lake. There they united with white refugees in constructing a strong stockade around the house of Samuel Mims, an old and wealthy inhabitant of that region, situated a short distance from the Boat-yard on Tensaw Lake, a mile east from the Alabama River, ten miles above its junction with the Tombigbee, and about two miles below the Cut-off. 26 The building was of wood, spacious in area, and one story in height. Strong pickets were driven around it, and fence-rails placed between them; and, at an average distance of three feet and a half from the ground, five hundred port-holes for musketry were made. The pickets inclosed an acre of ground, and the stockade was entered by two ponderous gates, one on the east and the other on the west. Besides Mims’s house there were several other buildings within the pickets; also cabins and board shelters. At the southwest corner was a partially-finished block-house. The whole work, which was called Fort Mims, was upon a slight elevation, yet not eligibly situated; but such confidence had the people of the surrounding country in its strength, that, as soon as it was finished, they poured into it in large numbers with their effects. It soon became the scene of a terrible tragedy that dispelled the pleasant dream of Creek civilization and friendship, and inflamed the people westward of the Alleghanies, who had suffered much from savage cruelty and treachery, with a thirst for vengeance.

Every day the war-cloud thickened. Rumors came to Claiborne from the northward that there was growing disaffection among the powerful Choctaws, and he perceived the value of an immediate blow at the Creeks before they should be ready to strike one themselves, or draw over to the interest of the war-party their more peaceably-inclined neighbors. He again applied to Flournoy for permission to penetrate the heart of the Creek nation, but with no better success than before. "I have to entreat you," Flournoy wrote to Claiborne, "not to permit your zeal for the public good to draw you into acts of indiscretion. Your wish to penetrate into the Indian country with the view of commencing the war does not meet my approbation, and I again repeat, our operations must be confined to defensive operations." 27 Flournoy was impressed with the belief that the hostile movements in the Creek country were only feints in the interest of the Spaniards, to draw the American troops from Mobile, so that the former might, while that post was weakened and uncovered, attempt its capture with a chance of success.

Again foiled, Claiborne addressed himself to the important task of securing the neutrality, at least, of the Cherokees, for every day gave signs of their constantly-growing disaffection. A belief was gaining ground, and with good reason, that a general Indian war in the southwest was possible, and even probable, and the whole country from the Perdido to the Mississippi was filled with alarms. The stockades were crowded with refugees from their menaced homes early in August, and doubt, and dread, and great fear filled the hearts of the white people. Claiborne went up to St. Stephen’s, and from thence dispatched a deputation to Pushamataha, the principal chief of the Choctaws, who was balancing between equally powerful inclinations toward peace and war. He listened, and was finally induced to visit Claiborne’s head-quarters at Mount Vernon [August 15.]. The general received him with much military pomp, and presented him with the uniform and other insignia of a brigadier general. 28 By this means his friendship was secured, and he and a band of his Choctaws – chosen warriors – immediately prepared for the war-path under the flag of the United States, while the rest of the nation agreed to remain neutral.

The morning of the 30th was clear and sultry. The alarm caused by the story of the negroes on the previous day had subsided, and Fletcher, the owner of one of them, had consented to have his slave whipped rather than be driven from the fort with his family. Full of confidence, Beasley at ten o’clock had dispatched a messenger with a letter to General Claiborne, in which he assured his commander of his perfect safety, and his "ability to maintain the post against any number of Indians." 29 The women in the stockade were preparing dinner; the soldiers were loitering listlessly about, or were playing cards, or lying on the ground asleep; and almost a hundred children were playing gleefully among the cabins and tents. Young men and maidens were dancing, and every appearance gave promise of an evening of sweet repose. Nothing marred the happy aspect of the scene but the form of Fletcher’s poor negro, who was tied up and his back bared for the lash because he had told a terrible truth, and it was believed to be a lie. But it was a moment of awful peril. In a shallow ravine, overshadowed by trees and filled with luxuriant vegetation, lay almost a thousand Creek warriors, not more than four hundred yards from the eastern gate, preparing, like fierce and famished tigers, to spring upon their prey at the first opportune moment. They were mostly naked excepting the usual "flap." Many of them were hideously painted, and all were well armed. The prophets, in whose care were the superstitions of the dusky horde, lay with the warriors, their heads covered with feathers, their faces painted black, and their medicine-bags and magic rods by their sides. It was a host devilish in appearance, and on a demoniac errand. Whence came they? Let us see.

We have observed that M‘Queen and his followers, after the battle of Burnt Corn Creek, went back to Pensacola, where they were again well supplied with provisions and ammunition, and instructed by the British and Indian agents there to fight the Americans, and, in the event of their being defeated, to send their women and children to Pensacola. "If you should be compelled to fly yourselves," they said, "and the Americans should prove too hard for both of us, there are vessels enough to carry us off altogether to Havana." 30

M‘Queen was associated with Josiah Francis and William Weathersford, both half-bloods; the former a son of a Creek woman by a Scotchman named Francis, 31 and the latter a child of Charles Weathersford, of Georgia, by the beautiful Sehoya, a half-sister of General M‘Gillivray, of the Creek nation. 32 Weathersford was an extraordinary man; commanding in person, powerful in physical strength, honorable, and as humane as circumstances would allow. He was the superior of M‘Queen and Francis in ability; and when, after the return of the well-supplied Indians from Pensacola, there was a great gathering of warriors at Toockabatcha, on the Tallapoosa, and preparations were made for opening the war by an incursion into the country on the Lower Alabama, he became the principal leader. 33

At noon the garrison drum at Fort Mims beat for dinner. The eastern gate stood wide open, with some drifted sand against it. The first tap was the signal for the savages to rise from their cover and rush to the fort; and the first intimation of their presence was a horrid yell, 34 that filled the air as they came streaming over a field toward the open gate. Beasley flew to close it, and his soldiers rushed with their arms to the port-holes, while the unarmed men, and the women and children, huddled, pale and trembling, and almost paralyzed with sudden fear, in the houses and cabins within the main inclosure. Beasley was too late. Before he could remove the drifted sand and shut the gate, the savages were upon him. He was felled by clubs and tomahawks; and over his dying body the dusky torrent rushed into the new inclosure, where Captains Middleton and Jack were on duty. He crawled behind the gate and soon expired, using his latest breath in exhorting his men to fight valiantly.

Only one place of refuge now remained, and to it the doomed people rushed frantically. It was Patrick’s loom-house (7 in the diagram below), on the north side of the fort, which had been inclosed with strong pickets, and called the Bastion. This was Captain Bailey’s original stand, and there he and the survivors of his company now took position and poured fatal volleys upon the savages.

The fire and the savages attacked the Bastion at the same time. The former was more merciful than the latter. The Indians broke down the pickets, and butchered the inmates in cold blood. The children were seized by the legs, and their brains knocked out against the stockades. Women were disemboweled, and their unborn children were flung in the air. The British agent at Pensacola had offered five dollars apiece for scalps, and the long tresses of women, as well as the coverings of men’s heads, were speedily in the hands of the savages as marketable commodities in a Christian mart! In the midst of the performance of these horrid deeds Weathersford rode up. Like Tecumtha, he was noble and humane. He reproached his followers for their cruelty, and begged them to spare the women and children at least. His interference nearly cost him his life. Many clubs were raised threateningly over his head, and he was compelled to retire. In after years the scenes he then witnessed filled him with remorse, for he was chief author of the calamity. He had raised the storm, but he was unable to control it. "My warriors," he said, "were like famished wolves, and the first taste of blood made their appetites insatiable." 35

At noon on that fatal 30th of August, when the drum was beaten for dinner, there were five hundred and fifty persons in Fort Mims, happy in the belief that they were secure from danger; at sunset of the same day four hundred of them were dead! Not one white woman nor one child escaped. Every avenue of flight from the horrid slaughter-pen was sentineled. Yet twelve men of the garrison did cut through the pickets and escape to the swamp. Among these was Captain Bailey; but he was severely wounded, and died by the side of a cypress stump. 36 Hester, a negro woman, who had received a ball in her breast, had followed them out. She reached a canoe in Tensaw Lake, paddled it into and down the Alabama to Fort Stoddart, which she reached on Tuesday night [August 31, 1813.], and was the first to give information to General Claiborne of the horrible tragedy. Most of the negroes were spared by the Indians, and were made their slaves.

The battle lasted from twelve o’clock until five, when the fort was a smoking ruin. The savages then retired about a mile east of the fort, where they slept that night, after smoking their pipes and trimming their scalps. They had suffered severely, for the garrison had sold their lives as dearly as possible. Not less than four hundred Creek warriors were slain or wounded. On the morning after the conflict they commenced burying their dead, but soon abandoned the labor. Putting their wounded into canoes, a part of the warriors went up the river; some staid in the neighborhood to plunder and kill, 37 and others went to Pensacola, with their trophy-scalps on poles, to receive their reward from the British agents there.

Ten days afterward, Major Kennedy, who had been sent by General Claiborne to bury the dead at Fort Mims arrived there [September 9.]. His eyes met a sad and horrid spectacle. The air was filled with gluttonous buzzards who had come to feast on the dead bodies, and a large number of dogs were disputing with the foul birds for the banquet. The mutilated remains of the dead were buried in two pits. 38 "Indians, negroes, white men, women, and children," Kennedy said in his report, "lay in one promiscuous mass. All were scalped; and the females of every age were butchered in a manner which neither decency nor language will permit me to describe. The main building was burned to ashes, which were filled with bones. The plains and the woods around were covered with dead bodies. All the houses were consumed by fire except the block-house and a part of the pickets. The soldiers and officers, with one voice, called on Divine Providence to revenge the death of our murdered friends." 39

Jackson’s appeal touched the hearts of the Tennesseeans; and the action of the Legislature, then in session, was consonant with the wishes and feelings of the people. On the 25th of September [1813.] they authorized Governor Blount to call out three thousand five hundred volunteers, in addition to fifteen hundred already mustered into the service of the United States, the commonwealth of Tennessee guaranteeing their pay and subsistence, and appropriating three hundred thousand dollars for the payment of expenses to he immediately incurred. On the same day General Jackson issued another spirited address, calling his division to the field. He ordered them to assemble on the 4th of October at Fayetteville, near the northern boundary of Alabama. Already his first address had set the military spirit of the state ablaze; now a letter-writer at Nashville declared [September 27.] that "in a few days there will be but few young men left in town. Nearly all have volunteered – some have gone, and others are getting ready. . . . Colonel John Coffee has already started with the cavalry. Infantry and mounted volunteer companies are flocking to the standard every day. Had not General Jackson been confined by his wound, I think all would have been on the way by this time." 40

On the 26th General Jackson dispatched the energetic Colonel Coffee, with his regiment of dragoons, five hundred strong, and as many mounted volunteers as could join him immediately, to take post at Huntsville, 41 in Northern Alabama, for the encouragement and protection of the inhabitants there, and to cover a dépôt of supplies which he intended to establish on the Tennessee River south of Huntsville, at Ditto’s Landing. Coffee pushed forward with celerity, and reached Huntsville on the 4th of October. His force had been augmented almost hourly on the way by volunteers who flocked to his standard, and he found himself on the borders of the Creek country with full thirteen hundred men. Jackson meanwhile, with his arm in a sling and suffering intensely, was making his way to the prescribed rendezvous of his troops at Fayetteville, on the 4th of October, full eighty miles south from Nashville. He could not reach there at the prescribed time, but sent forward a spirited address to the soldiers, to be read to them on that day. It was an appeal to their pride and patriotism; and called upon them, in an especial manner, to be obedient to discipline, for it was essential in preparing them for the noble task before them.

Jackson reached Fayetteville on the 7th of October, where he remained a week waiting for the arrival of troops, organizing them, and making arrangements for supplies. He was greeted by cheering news from Coffee. It was generally supposed that the Indians would hasten to the capture of Mobile, under the auspices and direction of the Spaniards, after the destruction of Fort Mims. It might have been an easy matter; but they lingered, as usual, after their victory, and then pushed northward. 42 This good news came from Coffee, and Jackson, acting upon it, was making vigorous preparation to meet them, when, on Monday, the 11th of October [1813.],a courier came dashing into his camp with intelligence from Coffee that the savages were near. The general gave instant orders for his troops to march. Two hours later they were in motion; and at eight o’clock the same evening they were in Huntsville, having marched thirty-two miles almost without halting. On the following morning Jackson was informed that the rumor of the near approach of the Indians was false. He leisurely led his troops across the swift-flowing Tennessee at Ditto’s Landing, joined Coffee’s command, and, on a high bluff overlooking the beautiful river, opposite a charming island, encamped.

2 See page 131.

7 See pages 219 to 221 inclusive.

8 Note 4, page 177.

10 See page 136.

24 Ferdinand Leigh Claiborne, a brother of William C. C. Claiborne, at that time governor of the Orleans Territory, was born in Sussex County, Virginia, in 1773. His family was one of the oldest in that commonwealth. In his twentieth year he was appointed an ensign in Wayne’s army, and became much attached to Major Hamtramck. One of his sons, now (1864) living, bears the major’s name. He was in the battle of the Fallen Timbers, at the Rapids of the Maumee, in 1794. He was stationed at Richmond and Norfolk after the war, holding first the rank of lieutenant and then of adjutant. In 1799 he was promoted to captain, and was active as such, and adjutant general in the Northwest, until 1802, when he was ordered to Natchez. He resigned, settled in the Mississippi Territory, presided over the deliberations of its Legislature, and in 1811 was appointed brigadier general of the Mississippi militia. In March, 1813, he was commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers in the United States Army, and ordered to the command of the post at Baton Rouge. He was active, as the text avers, during the Creek War. He was a legislative councilor of the Mississippi Territory immediately after the close of the Creek War in 1814, and died the following year.

26 See Map on the opposite page.

36 When the flames began to reach the people in the Bastion, Dr. Thomas G. Holmes, an assistant surgeon of the garrison, seized an axe, cut some pickets in two, but left them standing till an opportunity for escape offered. Bailey now cried out, "All is lost!" and begged the people to escape. The pickets were thrown down, but, as we have observed, only twelve escaped. Bailey’s little sick son, only thirteen years of age, was carried safely to the woods by his negro man Tom, who, half mad with fear and dire confusion, ran back with the boy to the Indians. The savages took the child by the legs, and while he cried "Father, save me!" they dashed out his brains. The following are the names of the persons who escaped from the fort and lived: Dr. Thomas G. Holmes; Hester, a negro woman; Socca, a friendly Indian; Peter Randon, lieutenant of citizens’ company; Josiah Fletcher; Sergeant Mathews; Martin Rigdon; Samuel Smith, a half-blood; ----- Mourrice and Joseph Perry, of the Mississippi Volunteers; John Hoven; ----- Jones; and Lieutenant W. R. Chambliss, of the Mississippi volunteers. – Pickett’s Alabama, ii., 276. See diagram on opposite page for the houses of the Steadhams and Randons, and the tent of Lieutenant Chambliss.

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