The battle over, Claiborne found his loss to be one man killed and six others wounded. Thirty Indians were found dead on the ground. The number of their wounded is not known. Claiborne destroyed the town, with every thing in it.
The army was now reduced almost to starvation, their only food being a little corn, which they parched and ate as they could. An alarm having been given by a party of men who were sent up the river in pursuit of fugitives, however, Claiborne marched in that direction during the night of December 24th, and pitched his tent on Weatherford's plantation, where he ate his Christmas breakfast of parched corn. Having destroyed all the buildings in the neighborhood, Claiborne's work in this region was done, and he hastened back to Fort Deposit, where he fed his troops before beginning his return march to Fort Claiborne. The army had been nine days without meat.
The term of service for which Carson's volunteers had enlisted had now expired, and as soon as the column arrived at Fort Claiborne the men were mustered out. In a letter to the Secretary of War, Claiborne reported that these men went home nearly naked, without shoes, and with their pay eight months in arrears. Their devotion to the cause, as it was shown in their cheerfulness and good conduct during their toilsome march, was, in view of all the circumstances, highly honorable to them.
Leaving Colonel Russell in command of Fort Claiborne, General Claiborne returned to Mount Vernon, partly because he had fully accomplished all that his orders from Flournoy permitted him to do, and partly because the discharge of his Mississippi volunteers had reduced his army to sixty men, and even these had but a month longer to serve!
Colonel Russell was no sooner left in command at Fort Claiborne than he instituted proceedings designed to fix the responsibility for the sufferings of the men during the campaign and for the blunder at the Holy Ground where it belonged. He ordered a court of inquiry in each case, but Major Cassels was permitted to escape censure on the ground that his guide had misled him. For the failure of the food supply the contractor was held responsible, as it was shown that General Claiborne had given him strict orders to provide abundant supplies for the expedition.
In order that the story of the Fort Claiborne army may be finished here before returning to the Ten Islands and following Jackson through his more important part of the campaign, we may depart for the moment from the chronological order of events to tell the story of an unsuccessful attempt which Colonel Russell made to invade the Creek Nation from Fort Claiborne, in the February following the events already described.
It was Colonel Russell's purpose to march to the Old Towns on the Cahawba River, and thence to attack the Indians wherever he could find them, establishing his base of supplies at that point. He provided a barge, loaded it with food for the troops, and putting Captain Denkins in command of it, with a piece of artillery as his armament, he directed that officer to ascend the Alabama River to the mouth of the Cahawba River, and thence to make his way up the Cahawba to Old Towns, where the army would meet him. Then, with his regiment reinforced by an infantry company from the neighborhood of Fort Madison under command of Captain Evan Austill, and a cavalry company commanded by Captain Foster—the two forming a battalion under the lead of Sam Dale, who was now a Major—Colonel Russell marched to the appointed place of rendezvous.
There he learned that the barge had not arrived, and as he had marched with but six days' provisions his situation was a critical one. To hasten the coming of the barge he despatched a canoe manned by Lieutenant Wilcox and five men in search of Captain Denkins. This party, while making its way down the river, travelling at night and hiding in the cane on the banks by day, was attacked by Indians. Lieutenant Wilcox and three of his companions were made prisoners, the other two escaping and making their way through many hardships to the settlements, where they arrived in a famished condition.
Captain Denkins had passed the mouth of the Cahawba River by mistake, and had gone a considerable distance up the Alabama River before discovering his error. When he did discover it, he knew that it was now too late for him to think of carrying out his original instructions. He knew that before he could possibly reach the Old Towns, the army would be starved out and compelled to retreat.
He therefore determined to return to Fort Claiborne. On his way down the river he discovered the canoe, and found in it Wilcox scalped and dying, and his two companions already dead.
Meantime Colonel Russell had waited two days at the Old Towns for the coming of the barge, and then, being wholly without provisions, began his return march, saving his army from starvation by killing and eating his horses on the route.
We now return to General Jackson's camp at Fort Strother, near the Ten Islands. The situation there was bad from the time of the Talladega expedition, and it grew steadily worse. The army was nearly starved, and Jackson was sharing their hunger with them. When a few lean kine were secured, seeing that the supply was sufficient only to give to each man a very scant portion, Jackson declined to take any part of the beef for his own table, and took some of the entrails instead, saying with cheerfulness that he had always heard that tripe was nutritious and savory food. He lost no opportunity to secure such provisions as could be had from the surrounding country, but these were barely sufficient to keep famine at bay from day to day, and Jackson busied himself with the writing of letters to everybody who could in any way contribute to hasten forward adequate supplies. He wrote to one contractor, saying:
"I have been compelled to return here for the want of supplies when I could have completed the destruction of the enemy in ten days; and on my arrival I find those I had left behind in the same starving condition with those who accompanied me. For God's sake send me with all despatch plentiful supplies of bread and meat. We have been starving for several days, and it will not do to continue so much longer. Hire wagons and purchase supplies at any price rather than defeat the expedition. General White, instead of forming a junction with me, as he assured me he would, has taken the retrograde motion, after having amused himself with consuming provisions for three weeks in the Cherokee Nation, and left me to rely on my own strength."[5]
Nothing that the perplexed commander could do or say or write, however, could help him. Day by day food became scarcer, poorer, and more difficult to get, and the men were becoming mutinous, as volunteers are sure to do when left to starve in inaction. If the enemy had appeared in his immediate neighborhood, Jackson would certainly have cured all the disorders of the camp and removed its discontent by giving the men constant occupation for their minds in conflicts with the foe. As it was, there was neither food nor fighting to be had at Fort Strother, and General Jackson did not dare to attempt a march upon the nearest Indian stronghold, about sixty miles away, without supplies.
Not many days had passed after the return to the Ten Islands when information reached Jackson that the men of the militia regiment intended to return to their homes with or without permission, and that they had appointed the next day as the time of starting. Luckily he believed that he could still depend upon the volunteers. He knew, too, that in this matter he had to deal with bodies of men, not with individuals. The power of public sentiment, which in this case was corps sentiment, was the power arrayed against him. He knew that the men would not desert singly, that their pride would restrain them from desertion unless they could act together, each being sustained by the opinion and the common action of all his fellows. The militia had determined to march home in a body; Jackson determined to restrain them in a body.
On the appointed day he called the volunteers to arms, and at their head placed himself in the way of the mutinous militiamen. He plainly informed the men that they could march homeward only by cutting their way through his lines, and this was an undertaking which they were not prepared for. Being unable to overcome Jackson, they had no choice but to yield to him and return to their tents, which they did at once, with what cheerfulness they could command.
The volunteers whose power Jackson was thus able to use in arresting the departure of the militia were scarcely less discontented than they. On the very day on which they stopped the march of the militia they resolved themselves to go home, and prepared to depart on the following morning. Jackson had information of what was going on, and he prepared to reverse the order of things by using the militia in their turn to oppose the volunteers. The militia having returned to their duty obeyed the commands of their general, and opposed a firm front to the mutinous volunteers. The affair wore so much of the appearance of a practical joke that it put the whole force into momentary good-humor.
With his men in this mood, however, Jackson knew that he had merely gained a very brief time by his firmness, and that the discontent of which the mutiny was born existed still in undiminished force. He therefore sent the cavalry to Huntsville to recruit their horses, first exacting a promise that they would return as soon as that end could be accomplished—a promise which the men afterward violated shamelessly. He then called all the officers of the army together, and, after giving them all the facts in his possession upon which he founded the confident hope that provisions in plenty would soon arrive, he made a speech to them, trying to win them back to something of their old devotion to duty. He had good reason to believe that supplies both of meat and of breadstuffs were now actually on their way to him, and his chief present purpose was to gain time, to persuade his followers to patience and obedience for the two or three days which he thought would end the period of short rations. According to Eaton's report of the speech, Jackson said to his officers:
"What is the present situation of our camp? A number of our fellow-soldiers are wounded and unable to help themselves. Shall it be said that we are so lost to humanity as to leave them in this condition? Can any one, under these circumstances and under these prospects, consent to an abandonment of the camp; of all that we have acquired in the midst of so many difficulties, privations, and dangers; of what it will cost us so much to regain; of what we never can regain—our brave wounded companions, who will be murdered by our unthinking, unfeeling inhumanity? Surely there can be none such! No, we will take with us when we go our wounded and sick. They must not, shall not perish by our cold-blooded indifference. But why should you despond? I do not; and yet your wants are not greater than mine. To be sure we do not live sumptuously; but no one has died of hunger or is likely to die. And then how animating are our prospects! Large supplies are at Deposit, and already are officers despatched to hasten them on. Wagons are on the way; a large number of beeves are in the neighborhood, and detachments are out to bring them in. All these resources cannot fail. I have no wish to starve you, none to deceive you. Stay contentedly, and if supplies do not arrive in two days we will all march back together, and throw the blame of our failure where it should properly lie; until then we certainly have the means of subsisting, and if we are compelled to bear privations, let us remember that they are borne for our country, and are not greater than many, perhaps most, armies have been compelled to endure. I have called you together to tell you my feelings and wishes. This evening think on them seriously, and let me know yours in the morning."
To this appeal the response was not satisfactory. The militia indeed agreed to remain during the stipulated two days, and promised that if the expected provisions should come within that time they would cease to murmur, and go on with the campaign; but the volunteers were now wholly given over to mutiny. They insolently informed General Jackson that they were going to march back to the borders of Tennessee, and that if he refused to yield immediately to their will in the matter, without waiting for the allotted two days to expire, they would go without permission and would use force if necessary to accomplish that end.
There can be no doubt whatever about the nature of the reply which Jackson would have made to this message if he had had even a small force upon which he could rely at his back. In that case the volunteers must have chosen between submission to his will and a battle with him. As it was, he was one man against the whole force. He could not oppose the mutinous volunteers with arms, and he felt that he must in some way prevent the abandonment of all that had been gained in the campaign. He therefore resorted to a compromise, which he hoped would solve the perplexing problem. He commanded the militia and one regiment of the volunteers to remain in the fort as a garrison, and ordered the other volunteer regiment to march toward Fort Deposit until it should meet the provision train, and then to countermarch and return with it. In this way he lost immediately only one half of the volunteers, winning the rest of them to his proposition for a delay of two days; and even the regiment which had been sent away might yet return with the provisions, as the lack of food was the only plea that had been urged in defence of the mutiny.
The discontent really lay much deeper than that: it had come as much from idleness in camp and from home-sickness as from hunger, and it had eaten into the soldierly characters of the men, honeycombing them with sedition and insubordination; but while the plea of starvation remained to them the men urged no other, and Jackson's memory of their courage and good conduct on former occasions, led him to hope that with this cause of trouble removed the trouble itself would disappear.
When the two days of waiting had passed, and no supplies had come, a new difficulty lay in Jackson's path, namely, his own voluntary promise. He had asked for two days' delay, promising to permit the men to march away if food did not arrive within that time. The promise now fell due and the men exacted its fulfilment. In his sore distress he could do nothing further to compel obedience. He had even relinquished his right to command the men to remain and his privilege to bargain for further delay. He must let them go now, but there was no reason why any of them who chose to do so might not voluntarily remain to defend the fort. It was a slender hope, but Jackson was grasping at straws now. He set out to seek volunteers, declaring that if even two men should consent to stay with him he would not abandon Fort Strother and the campaign, but would stay there and wait for the coming of reinforcements. One of his captains at once offered himself as one of this army of two, and by an earnest effort they succeeded in swelling the number of volunteers to one hundred and nine men.
This was all that was left of Jackson's army, and the campaign lay mostly before him. A man of less stubborn resolution would have despaired; but Jackson held on in the hope of gaining strength after awhile and gathering men enough around him to make a resumption of operations possible.
He permitted the rest of his troops to leave the post, first exacting a promise that they would return if they should meet the supply train, and in order the more effectually to enforce this demand Jackson accompanied the column, leaving his army, one hundred and nine strong, to hold the fort until his return.
Twelve miles from the fort the column met the provision train. Jackson called a halt and ordered rations to be distributed to the men. It was now his turn to insist upon the faithful fulfilment of a promise. He had kept his word in permitting his men to abandon Fort Strother at the time appointed; he could now, with especially good grace, insist that the men should keep their promise and return with the provision train.
Now for the first time the mutiny began to assume its true colors. With stomachs filled with good beef and bread—for a large drove of beef cattle was with the provision train, and Jackson had given the men beef rations—it was no longer possible to urge hunger in excuse for abandonment of duty; but the men had set out intending to go home, and they had no thought of relinquishing that intention merely because the excuse by which they had justified their conduct would no longer serve their purpose.
When ordered to take up the line of march toward the fort the men rebelled and started homeward instead.
Then ensued one of the most impressive scenes in Jackson's career. Raving with rage, his thin lips set and his frame quivering with anger, the commander's face and mien were terrible. His left arm was still carried in a sling, and the hardships, hunger, fatigue, and ceaseless anxiety to which he had been subject ever since he quitted his sick-bed to come upon this campaign had not made his wasted frame less emaciated; he was a sick man who ought to have been in bed: but the illness was of the body, not of the soul. The spirit of the man was now intensely stirred, and when Jackson was in this mood there were few men who had the courage to brave him.
Riding after the head of the column, he placed himself with a few followers in front of it, and drove the men back like sheep. Then leaving the officers who were with him he rode alone down the road, until he encountered a brigade which was drawn up in column, resolved to conquer its way by a regular advance against any body of men who might oppose its homeward march. If a company or a battalion had undertaken to arrest the march of these men there would have been a battle there in the road without question. They were prepared to fight their comrades to the death; they were ready to meet a force equal to their own. They met Andrew Jackson instead—Andrew Jackson in a rage, Andrew Jackson with all the blood in his frail body boiling; and that was a force greatly superior to their own.
Snatching a musket from one of the men Jackson commanded the mutineers to halt. He broke forth in a torrent of vituperation, and declared that they could march toward home only over his dead body; he declared, too, with an emphasis which carried conviction with it, that while he could not, single-handed, overcome a brigade of armed men, he at least could and would shoot down the first man who should dare to make the least motion toward advancing.
The men were overawed, terrified, demoralized by the force of this one resolute man's fierce determination. They stood like petrified men, not knowing what to do. It was now evident that no man there would dare to make himself Jackson's target by being the first to advance. Jackson had beaten a brigade, literally single-handed, for he had but one hand that he could use.
By this time General Coffee and some staff officers had joined Jackson, and now a few of the better disposed men, seeing their general opposing a brigade of mutineers, ranged themselves by his side, prepared to assist him in any encounter that might come, however badly overmatched they might be. The mutineers were already conquered, however, and sullenly yielding they were sent back to the fort.
Having thus succeeded in sending what remained of his army back to Fort Strother, with abundant food at least for present uses, Jackson hastened to Fort Deposit and succeeded there in effecting arrangements for a constant supply of bread and meat.
Then he mounted his horse and rode back to Fort Strother, determined to collect what force he could without delay, and by vigorous measures to bring the campaign to a speedy and successful end.
His first measure was to order General Cocke to join him with the East Tennessee troops, saying in his letter to that officer that if he could arrive at Fort Strother by the 12th of December, bringing with him all the provisions he could gather, the Creeks could be crushed within three weeks. This was a most inspiriting prospect, and Jackson was apparently all the more elated because of his recent depression.
His good fortune was destined to be short-lived, however. He had scarcely reached Fort Strother on his return from Fort Deposit when he discovered that his volunteers were planning a new mutiny, or, as they stoutly maintained, were preparing to leave him with legal right and justice on their side.
The state of the case may be briefly summed up as follows: These volunteers had been mustered into service on the 10th of December, 1812, the terms of their enlistment being that they should serve for one year within the next two years, unless sooner discharged; that is to say, they were to be discharged as soon as they should have served a year; or, if their actual service in the field should not amount to a full year they should be discharged on the 10th of December, 1814. They were called into service when Jackson made his march with them to Natchez, which has been spoken of in a former chapter. After a few months, their services not being needed, they were dismissed from actual service to their homes, subject, however, to a call at any time until their time of service should expire.
Under this enlistment they were recalled to the field in September, 1813, as we have seen, and were under obligation to serve for a sufficient time to complete their term of one year in the field; but as it had been supposed when they were enlisted that their services would be needed continuously for a year, they had thought little about the alternative condition. They now held that their enlistment would expire just one year after it had begun—that is to say, on the 10th of December, 1813, a date now at hand. They were determined to permit no allowance to be made for the months which they had passed at home, and insisted that as they had enlisted for one year they would go home when the year should end.
In this demand for discharge the officers, who should have been the men's instructors in such a case, made the matter hopeless by joining the discontented soldiery. With their colonels and majors and captains to second them, the men were doubly certain to persist in their interpretation of the contract of service.
Not long before the disputed date the colonel of one of the volunteer regiments laid their case before Jackson in a letter, in which he assured him that the volunteers would demand their honorable discharge from service on the 10th of December, the anniversary of their enlistment. The appeal made in this letter was an adroit effort to play upon next to the strongest feeling in Jackson's heart—his fatherly affection for the men who had followed him into battle. We say next to the strongest feeling in his heart, because the strongest was, undoubtedly, his desire to serve his country by accomplishing the utter suppression of the Creeks. The colonel told Jackson that the volunteers looked to their loved and honored general to protect them in this their right, and to secure justice to them; that they lamented the necessity of leaving the field at such a time, but that their families and their private affairs required their return to their homes; that upon him, to whom they looked with reverence as to a father, depended the question whether, after their hard service under his leadership, they should be permitted to go home with the certificates of honorable discharge to which they were entitled, or should be forced to carry with them the ill-repute of deserters. He was strongly implored not to reward their devotion to the cause and to him by fixing this brand of disgrace upon them and their children after them.
The appeal was adroit we say, and a masterly piece of special pleading; but the officer who wrote it must have known when he did so that the demand which he sought to enforce was unjust; that even if it had been just, Jackson had no more authority than he himself had to grant it; and that the disputed question had already been submitted formally and fully to the Secretary of War, who had decided it adversely to the men, and had accompanied that decision by the assurance that as the matter was governed by an express act of Congress, no power short of that of the national legislature—neither the Secretary nor the President himself—was competent to change the terms of the enlistment, or to discharge the troops until either they had given a year to actual service, or the two years during which they were subject to a call had expired. For the men, and perhaps also for the subordinate officers, there may have been the excuse of an honest misunderstanding, but for this colonel, whose letter shows him to have been a man of high intelligence, there can have been no excuse at all.
Jackson replied to this letter in one of the ablest documents which has come from his hand. Eaton has preserved it in his Life of Jackson, and Mr. Parton has copied it. Let us see what the commander, touched without doubt by theargumentum ad hominemthat was used, had to say by way of answer:
"I know not what scenes will be exhibited on the 10th instant, nor what consequences are to flow from them, here or elsewhere; but as I shall have the consciousness that they are not imputable to any misconduct of mine, I trust I shall have the firmness not to shrink from a discharge of my duty.
"It will be well, however, for those who intend to become actors in those scenes, and who are about to hazard so much on the correctness of their opinions, to examine beforehand with great caution and deliberation the grounds on which their pretensions rest. Are they founded on any false assurances of mine, or upon any deception that has been practised toward them? Was not the act of Congress, under which they are engaged, directed by my general order to be read and expounded to them before they enrolled themselves? That order will testify, and so will the recollection of every general officer of my division. It is not pretended that those who now claim to be discharged were not legally and fairly enrolled under the act of Congress of the 6th of February, 1812. Have they performed the service required of them by that act, and which they then solemnly undertook to perform? That required one year's service out of two, to be computed from the day of rendezvous, unless they should be sooner discharged. Has one year's service been performed? This cannot be seriously pretended. Have they then been discharged? It is said they have, and by me. To account for so extraordinary a belief, it may be necessary to take a review of past circumstances.
"More than twelve months have elapsed since we were called upon to avenge the injured right of our country. We obeyed the call. In the midst of hardships, which none but those to whom liberty is dear could have borne without a murmur, we descended the Mississippi. It was believed our services were wanted in the prosecution of the just war in which our country was engaged, and we were prepared to render them. But though we were disappointed in our expectations we established for Tennessee a name which will long do her honor. At length we received a letter from the Secretary of War directing our dismission. You will recollect the circumstances of wretchedness in which this order was calculated to place us. By it we were deprived of every article of public property; no provision was made for the payment of our troops or their subsistence on their return march; while many of our sick, unable to help themselves, must have perished. Against the opinion of many I marched them back to their homes before I dismissed them. Your regiment, at its own request, was dismissed at Columbia. This was accompanied with a certificate to each man, expressing the acts under which he had been enrolled and the length of the tour he had performed. This it is which is now attempted to be construed 'a final discharge.' But surely it cannot be forgotten by any officer or soldier how sacredly they pledged themselves, before they were dismissed or received that certificate, cheerfully to obey the voice of their country, if it should re-summon them into service; neither can it be forgotten, I dare hope, for what purpose that certificate was given; it was to secure, if possible, to those brave men, who had shown such readiness to serve their country, certain extra emoluments, specified in the seventh section of the act under which they had engaged, in the event they were not recalled into service for the residue of their term.
"Is it true, then, that my solicitude for the interest of the volunteers is to be made by them a pretext for disgracing a name which they have rendered illustrious? Is a certificate, designed solely for their benefit, to become the rallying word for mutiny? Strange perversion of feeling and of reasoning! Have I really any power to discharge men whose term of service has not expired? If I were weak or wicked enough to attempt the exercise of such a power, does any one believe the soldier would be thereby exonerated from the obligation he has voluntarily taken upon himself to his government? I should become a traitor to the important concern which has been intrusted to my management, while the soldier who had been deceived by a false hope of liberation would be still liable to redeem his pledge. I should disgrace myself without benefiting you.
"I can only deplore the situation of those officers who have undertaken to persuade their men that their term of service will expire on the 10th. In giving their opinions to this effect they have acted indiscreetly and without sufficient authority. It would be the most pleasing act of my life to restore them with honor to their families. Nothing could pain me more than that any other sentiments should be felt toward them than those of gratitude and esteem. On all occasions it has been my highest happiness to promote their interest, and even to gratify their wishes, where with propriety it could be done. When in the lower country, believing that in the order for their dismissal they had been improperly treated, I even solicited the government to discharge them finally from the obligations into which they had entered. You know the answer of the Secretary of War: that neither he nor the President, as he believed, had the power to discharge them. How then can it be required of me to do so?
"The moment it is signified to me by any competent authority, even by the Governor of Tennessee, to whom I have written on the subject, or by General Pinckney, who is now appointed to the command, that the volunteers may be exonerated from further service, that moment I will pronounce it with the greatest satisfaction. I have only the power of pronouncing a discharge, not of giving it, in any case—a distinction which I would wish should be borne in mind. Already have I sent to raise volunteers on my own responsibility, to complete a campaign which has been so happily begun, and thus far so fortunately prosecuted. The moment they arrive, and I am assured that, fired by our exploits, they will hasten in crowds on the first intimation that we need their services, they will be substituted in the place of those who are discontented here. The latter will then be permitted to return to their homes with all the honor which, under such circumstances they can carry along with them. But I still cherish the hope that their dissatisfaction and complaints have been greatly exaggerated. I cannot, must not, believe that the 'volunteers of Tennessee,' a name ever dear to fame, will disgrace themselves and a country which they have honored, by abandoning her standard as mutineers and deserters; but should I be disappointed and compelled to resign this pleasing hope, one thing I will not resign—my duty. Mutiny and sedition, so long as I possess the power of quelling them, shall be put down; and even when left destitute of this, I will still be found in the last extremity endeavoring to discharge the duty I owe my country and myself."
When troops unused as these men were to systematic obedience make up their minds to abandon the service they are of very little account thereafter, as soldiers. If one pretext for mutiny and desertion fails them, they quickly find another, as the men had done in this case. While famine lasted, famine was the best possible excuse for wishing to go home, and the men thought of no other. They even protested their devotion to the cause and their willingness to remain in service if food could be found for them; but no sooner were their mouths stopped with abundant supplies of beef and bread than they tried to leave, as has been described, without any pretext whatever. Failing in that, they picked this flaw, or this pretended flaw, in their contract of enlistment, and Jackson probably knew that so far as their restoration to the condition of good soldiers was concerned, he was wasting words in arguing the case; but it was necessary to detain these men until the others for whom he had sent to Tennessee should arrive to take their places. They were useless for any thing like offensive operations, else he would have marched with them at once toward the Creek strongholds; but while they should remain at Fort Strother he could depend upon them to defend that post against any assault that might be made upon it, simply because in the event of an attack they must defend themselves, and to do that would have been to defend the fort.
Jackson had ordered the enlistment of a new force to take the place of these discontented men, but until the new army should come he was bent upon keeping the old one.
Precisely what arrangements he had made to meet trouble on the 10th of December we have no means of knowing. He was not permitted to wait for the coming of that day. On the evening of the 9th, word was brought to him that the men were already strapping their knapsacks on their backs and getting ready to march immediately.
It was time to act. Jackson issued one of the shortest of all his proclamations, ordering all good soldiers to assist in putting down the mutiny. Then he ordered the militia to parade at once under arms. Placing his cannon in a commanding position, he drew up the militia in line of battle and confronted the mutinous volunteers.
Riding to the front he made a speech to the volunteers, beginning by assuring them that they could march only over his dead body; that he had done with entreaty, and meant now to use force; that they must now make their choice between returning to their tents and remaining quietly upon duty, and fighting him and his troops right where he stood; the point, he said, could be decided very quickly by arms if they chose to submit the question to that kind of argument. He told them, too, that he was expecting new troops to take their places, and that until these new troops should arrive not a man present should quit the post except by force.
He was now terribly in earnest, and bent upon no half-way measures. He had drawn his men up in line of battle, not as a threat, but for purposes of battle. He was ready to fight, and meant to fight, not defensively, but offensively. He wanted no negotiation, asked no man upon what terms he would submit. He had dictated the terms himself and meant now to enforce them. He had given the volunteers a choice—either to remain peaceably until he should send them home, or to fight a battle with him right there in the road and right then on the 9th of December; he had offered them this choice, and they must choose and say what their choice was. When he ended his speech the volunteers stood grimly, sullenly silent. They did not offer to advance, but that was not enough. They must say whether they would remain and obey, or accept battle. If they would promise to remain without further attempts of this kind, he was content; if not, the battle would begin.
"I demand an explicit answer," he said; and no reply coming, he turned to his artillerymen and ordered them to stand to their guns with lighted matches.
It was now a question merely of seconds. Jackson gave the men time to answer, but not many moments would pass before he would speak the only words which were left to him to speak—the words "commence firing," those words which in every battle are the signal for the transformation of iron or brazen guns from harmless cylinders of metal into bellowing monsters, belching fiery death from their throats.
There was silence for a moment—that awful silence which always precedes the turmoil of battle, doing more to appall men than all the demoniac noises of the contest do; then a murmur was heard as of men hastily consulting; then the officers of the volunteer brigade stepped a pace to the front and delivered the answer which Jackson had demanded.
They had made their choice, and the answer was that they would return to duty, and remain at the fort until the new men should come, or until their commander should receive authority to discharge them.
This affair of the 9th of December, 1813, is nowhere set down in the list of Jackson's battles; but nowhere did he win a more decided victory or display his qualities as a great commander to better advantage.
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.
Having begun the work of getting rid of men upon whom he could not depend for active service, Jackson was disposed to complete it as speedily as possible, in order that he might resume the active operations of the campaign, knowing precisely what he could count upon in the way of an army and governing his measures accordingly.
He had counted upon General Cocke's force for at least half his strength, but here again he was doomed to disappointment. General Cocke came, it is true, according to the appointment, and brought an army of two thousand men with him; but they were three-months' men, and they had already served more than two months! General Cocke has declared in a printed letter that he had asked these men to give up the thought of going home at the expiration of their term of service, and voluntarily remain until the end of the campaign, and that the men had promised him to do so. He expressed in that letter surprise, not unmixed with indignation, that Jackson did not take them at their word; but when we remember what Jackson had just gone through, and reflect that these men would have ceased to be soldiers and become citizens when their time should expire; that their promise to remain till the end of the campaign would have had no binding force whatever; that they would have had the fullest right, individually or in bodies, to abandon the army at any moment, however critical the situation might be; and that Jackson would have had absolutely no authority over them, even to command obedience to orders in camp or battle, we cannot wonder that he declined to begin a campaign in the wilderness against a savage and wily foe, with an army which might dissolve at any moment and go home, and which, even while it should remain with him, would be free to disobey orders at its own sweet will. Campaigns are not successfully carried on, battles are not won, with mobs. Jackson meant to have an army before setting out again to crush the Creeks, and accordingly he sent Cocke's men home, retaining only Colonel Lillard's regiment as a temporary garrison for the fort.
He then ordered General Cocke to return to East Tennessee and enlist a new force, and urged the returning men to volunteer again as soon as they should have provided themselves at home with suitable clothing for a winter campaign.
It was his hope that two thousand men or more would be secured in East Tennessee and a like number in West Tennessee, and with such a force he could march into the Creek Nation and crush the savages, he believed, within a very brief time.
General Cocke obeyed the order very reluctantly, as he has himself told the public. His confidence in his men was so great, that he thought it unnecessary and unwise to dismiss them and search for others to take their place. He did as he was bidden, however, returning to East Tennessee and speedily securing a new force two thousand strong. These men volunteered for six months, and were mustered into service in time to march on the 17th of January.
On the march, however, these six-months' men learned that the new levies from the western part of the State—men between whom and the East Tennesseeans a wretched jealousy prevailed—were to be enlisted for only three months, and this bred sore discontent in General Cocke's camp. General Cocke met this difficulty resolutely, and in a published letter he has given an account of what he did.
"I overtook the troops," he says, "at the Lookout Mountain, when I found a dissatisfaction among the troops amounting almost to mutiny. They declared their determination to return home at the end of three months. I made them a speech, in which I told them that if they left the army without any honorable discharge, they would disgrace themselves and families; that much of their time had already expired, and for all the good they could do, if they intended to leave at the end of three months they had better go home then, but appealed to their magnanimity and patriotism to go on like brave men and good soldiers, and serve until the expiration of the term for which they were ordered into service."
These troops were certainly not in a mood to become soldiers fit for the work they had to do. Meantime the work of enlistment in West Tennessee had gone on very slowly and unsatisfactorily, and even Coffee's troopers, whom Jackson had sent to Huntsville to recruit their horses, exacting a promise from them that they would return as soon as they should accomplish that object, had broken faith and deserted in a body in spite of all that their gallant leader could do to restrain them.
Even this was not the end of Jackson's troubles. The men whom he had retained from Cocke's command were ready to leave as soon as their term of service should expire, and the date of its expiration was near at hand. This would diminish the force in Fort Strother from fourteen hundred to six hundred men. These six hundred were militiamen, and now, as if to break down what remained of Jackson's hopes, these troops managed to find an excuse for quitting the service and going home presently. The act of the legislature by which they had been called into service was bunglingly drawn, and upon examining it the militia officers discovered that nothing whatever had been said in the law with respect to the length of time for which they should serve. Then the question arose, How long have these men engaged to serve? The men held that as no term was set by the law the lawgivers must be held to have meant the shortest time for which it was customary to call out the militia, namely, three months, and that time would end on the 4th of January. Jackson, on the other hand, held that the law set no other limit to the term of service, because it meant that the service should continue as long as the war did. The men had been called out, he said, to suppress the Creeks, and their term of service would end when they had done that, and not before—whether that should be three months or three years after their enlistment. Jackson had fourteen hundred men, of whom eight hundred had an unquestioned right to quit in the middle of January, while the remaining six hundred asserted their right to retire at the beginning of that month. The new East Tennessee troops who were on their way to him had enlisted for six months, but, as we know, were determined to serve only half of that term, a considerable part of which had already expired. Never was a commander in a sorer strait. Sent to fight a campaign and held responsible for its success, he was denied an army with which to fight at all. His commanding general urged him to activity, on the ground that the British must at any cost be shorn of the strength they had sought to secure by stimulating Indian hostilities; the British were already in Florida, threatening Mobile and New Orleans; the Seminoles in the Spanish province and the runaway negroes there were ready to take up arms and assail the Georgia borders; while in the North and West the war was prosecuted by the enemy with untiring perseverance.
But what was Jackson to do? The troops he had were about to leave him, and it began to appear that no others were likely to come to him. Even Governor Blount advised him to yield to the demands both of the six-months' volunteers who wanted to quit the service at the end of three months, and of the militia who wanted to quit almost immediately. Governor Blount sent Jackson a letter in which he urged this course upon him, advising him to regard the campaign as at an end, retire to the borders of Tennessee and protect that state as well as he could, abandon the attempt to raise a new force by enlisting volunteers, and quietly wait until the National Government should provide him with an army by ordering a draft or by some other means. Governor Blount believed that he had no authority to raise further forces, and that any attempt which he might make to do so must injure rather than help the service.
Then Jackson rose to the occasion, and showed that he was no less able as a debater than as a fighter. He wrote a letter to Governor Blount which changed the whole face of affairs, converted that executive officer to views the opposite of those that he had held, and led to the creation of a new army, or rather of two new armies, one being a temporary supply of short-term men, with whom Jackson did some work, and the other coming immediately to take its place.
This letter, for the text of which we are indebted to Mr. Parton, is called by that writer "the best letter he [Jackson] ever wrote in his life—one of those historical epistles which do the work of a campaign." Jackson wrote:
"Had your wish that I should discharge a part of my force and retire with the residue into the settlements assumed the form of a positive order, it might have furnished me some apology for pursuing such a course, but by no means a full justification. As you would have no power to give such an order, I could not be inculpable in obeying, with my eyes open to the fatal consequences that would attend it. But a bare recommendation—founded, as I am satisfied it must be, on the artful suggestions of those fireside patriots who seek in a failure of the expedition an excuse for their own supineness, and upon the misrepresentations of the discontented from the army, who wish it to be believed that the difficulties which overcame their patriotism are wholly insurmountable—would afford me but a feeble shield against the reproaches of my country or my conscience. Believe me, my respected friend, the remarks I make proceed from the purest personal regard. If you would preserve your reputation or that of the State over which you preside, you must take a straightforward, determined course, regardless of the applause or censure of the populace, and of the forebodings of that dastardly and designing crew who at a time like this may be expected to clamor continually in your ears. The very wretches who now beset you with evil counsel will be the first, should the measures which they recommend eventuate in disaster, to call down imprecations on your head and load you with reproaches.
"Your country is in danger; apply its resources to its defence. Can any course be more plain? Do you, my friend, at such a moment as the present, sit with your arms folded and your heart at ease, waiting a solution of your doubts and definitions of your powers? Do you wait for special instructions from the Secretary of War, which it is impossible for you to receive in time for the danger that threatens? How did the venerable Shelby act under similar circumstances, or rather under circumstances by no means so critical? Did he wait for orders to do what every man of sense knew, what every patriot felt to be right? He did not; and yet how highly and justly did the government extol his manly and energetic conduct! and how dear has his name become to every friend of his country!
"You say that an order to bring the necessary quota of men into the field has been given, and that of course your power ceases; and although you are made sensible that the order has been wholly neglected, you can take no measure to remedy the omission. I consider it your imperious duty, when the men called for by your authority, founded upon that of the government, are known not to be in the field, to see that they be brought there; and to take immediate measures with the officer who, charged with the execution of your order, omits or neglects to do it. As the executive of the State, it is your duty to see that the full quota of troops be constantly kept in the field for the time they have been required. You are responsible to the government; your officer to you. Of what avail is it to give an order if it be never executed and may be disobeyed with impunity? Is it by empty mandates that we can hope to conquer our enemies and save our defenceless frontiers from butchery and devastation? Believe me, my valued friend, there are times when it is highly criminal to shrink from responsibility or scruple about the exercise of our powers. There are times when we must disregard punctilious etiquette, and think only of serving our country. What is really our present situation? The enemy we have been sent to subdue may be said, if we stop at this, to be only exasperated. The commander-in-chief, General Pinckney, who supposes me by this time prepared for renewed operations, has ordered me to advance and form a junction with the Georgia army; and upon the expectation that I will do so are all his arrangements formed for the prosecution of the campaign. Will it do to defeat his plans and jeopardize the safety of the Georgia army? The General Government, too, believe, and have a right to believe, that we have now not less than five thousand men in the heart of the enemy's country, and on this opinion are all their calculations bottomed; and must they all be frustrated, and I become the instrument by which it is done? God forbid!
"You advise me to discharge or dismiss from service, until the will of the President can be known, such portion of the militia as have rendered three months' service. This advice astonishes me even more than the former. I have no such discretionary power; and if I had, it would be impolitic and ruinous to exercise it. I believed the militia who were not specially received for a shorter period were engaged for six months, unless the objects of the expedition should be sooner attained; and in this opinion I was greatly strengthened by your letter of the 15th, in which you say, when answering my inquiry upon this subject, 'The militia are detached for six months' service;' nor did I know or suppose you had a different opinion until the arrival of your last letter. This opinion must, I suppose, agreeably to your request, be made known to General Roberts' brigade, and then the consequences are not difficult to be foreseen. Every man belonging to it will abandon me on the 4th of next month; nor shall I have the means of preventing it but by the application of force, which under such circumstances I shall not be at liberty to use. I have labored hard to reconcile these men to a continuance in service until they could be honorably discharged, and had hoped I had in a great measure succeeded; but your opinion, operating with their own prejudices, will give a sanction to their conduct, and render useless any further attempts. They will go; but I can neither discharge nor dismiss them. Shall I be told that, as they will go, it may as well be peaceably permitted? Can that be any good reason why I should do an unauthorized act? Is it a good reason why I should violate the order of my superior officer and evince a willingness to defeat the purposes of my government? And wherein does the 'sound policy' of the measures that have been recommended consist? or in what way are they 'likely to promote the public good'? Is it sound policy to abandon a conquest thus far made, and deliver up to havoc or add to the number of our enemies those friendly Creeks and Cherokees who, relying on our protection, have espoused our cause and aided us with their arms? What! Retrograde under such circumstances? I will perish first. No. I will do my duty; I will hold the posts I have established, until ordered to abandon them by the commanding general, or die in the struggle; long since have I determined not to seek the preservation of life at the sacrifice of reputation.
"But our frontiers, it seems, are to be defended; and by whom? By the very force that is now recommended to be dismissed: for I am first told to retire into the settlements and protect the frontiers; next to discharge my troops; and then that no measures can be taken for raising others. No, my friend, if troops be given me, it is not by loitering on the frontiers that I will seek to give protection: they are to be defended, if defended at all, in a very different manner—by carrying the war into the heart of the enemy's country. All other hopes of defence are more visionary than dreams.
"What, then, is to be done? I'll tell you what. You have only to act with the energy and decision the crisis demands, and all will be well. Send me a force engaged for six months and I will answer for the result; but withhold it and all is lost—the reputation of the State, and yours and mine along with it."
Fortunately, Governor Blount had not only the sense to see into what errors he had fallen, when the real state of the case and the obligations it placed upon him were thus pointed out, but the courage also to act inconsistently and to do that which he had once solemnly declared that he ought not to do. It was too late to undo the mischief he had done by advising the discharge of the discontented militia, but he set to work at once to provide men to take their places. The militia left in spite of all that Jackson cared to do to detain them, and Cocke's volunteers followed them ten days afterward, but in the meantime a force of nine hundred new men had arrived. They had enlisted in part for two and in part for three months, and were therefore of comparatively little value; but Jackson resolved to use them at least while waiting for the arrival of the larger and better force which had been ordered to gather at Fayetteville on the 28th of January. He meant to strike a blow with what force he had while its enlistment should continue, so that no more men might be paid for service as soldiers without doing any fighting. The volunteers whose term had expired marched out of camp on the 14th of January, and on the next day Jackson set his new men in motion for work.
They were undrilled, undisciplined, and weak in numbers, but Jackson was now bent upon fighting with any thing that he could get which remotely resembled an army.
In an earlier chapter of this book the author expressed the opinion that if the Creeks could have had an equal share with their enemies in writing the history of the war their story would have given us very different impressions from those that we now have with respect to many of the events of the struggle. Perhaps no better illustration of the truth of this assumption could be given than that which is furnished by the story of Jackson's short campaign with his two and three months' men. The Creek chiefs who fought this force in the battles of Emuckfau and Enotachopco always declared, in talking of the matter after the war, that they "whipped Captain Jackson and ran him to the Coosa River," and while neither Jackson's report of the campaign nor any other of the written accounts of it, admit the truth of this Indian version of the story, they furnish a good many details which strongly suggest that the Creek chiefs may not have been altogether wrong in their interpretation of events.
But as they had no historians to put their account upon record, except by reporting their verbal assertion which we have quoted, the writer is compelled to rely upon the testimony of the other side exclusively for all information about matters of detail.
The force which had come from Tennessee consisted of about nine hundred men in all, of whom eight hundred and fifty were fit for duty. They were in two regiments, one commanded by Colonel Perkins, the other by Colonel Higgins.
With this small force Jackson at once began his march. Crossing the Coosa River on the day after their arrival, he pushed forward to Talladega, where he was reinforced by a body of friendly Indians consisting of sixty-five Cherokees and about two hundred Creeks. He had with him an artillery detachment with a single iron six pounder cannon; a company of spies under Captain Russell, and another under Captain Gordon; and one company composed exclusively of officers. These were officers of various grades whose men had gone home. General Coffee, whose troops also had left him, had gathered these officers together and commanded them in person. General Jackson said in his report that his force numbered exactly nine hundred and thirty men, exclusive of the friendly Indians who accompanied him. These Indians are said to have been somewhat alarmed when they saw how small a force Jackson had with him, but there is nothing to show that they in the least faltered in their duty or hesitated to march when ordered to do so.
General Floyd was already moving to strike the Creeks again, having recovered from his wound. Of this movement and of the nature of Floyd's plans Jackson was advised, in order that he might as far as possible arrange his own in accordance with them.
At Talladega General Jackson received a despatch from Colonel Snodgrass, commanding at Fort Armstrong, that a force of Creeks had assembled at Emuckfau, in a bend of the Tallapoosa River, near the mouth of Emuckfau Creek, in what is now Tallapoosa County, Alabama, and that these Indians, now about nine hundred strong, were preparing to attack Fort Armstrong. Jackson resolved to find and fight this Creek force at once. His men, as he tells us in his report, were both undrilled and insubordinate, and their officers were without skill or experience; but the troops were really anxious to fight a battle, and in this particular their general was disposed to gratify them as speedily as possible. Luckily he had a few good men upon whom he could depend, and his company of brave and experienced officers who were serving as private soldiers with General Coffee for their captain were his special staff of reliance.
Pushing forward as rapidly as possible, the army arrived at Enotachopco, about a dozen miles from Emuckfau, on the afternoon of January 20th. The march was resumed the next morning, and early in the day signs were discovered of the proximity of a large Creek force. Well-beaten trails were found, and a few Indians seen.
It was necessary now to reconnoitre before proceeding further, in order to avoid a surprise in some unfavorable spot. Jackson selected a halting-place and ordered the men to encamp in the form of a hollow square, taking great pains to surround the camp with a line of well-placed picket-guards. Then he sent out his spies to discover the whereabouts and the strength of the Indian force.
Before midnight the spies reported that a large Indian encampment lay within about three miles of Jackson's position, and that the Indians were removing their women and evidently preparing for battle. It was probable that they did not intend to await Jackson's attack, but intended to fall upon his camp during the night, but the careful commander, having already taken every precaution against surprise, contented himself with warning the pickets against neglect of vigilance and the men against panic in the event of a night attack.
The Indians advanced as morning approached, and at six o'clock, while it was not yet light, fell upon Jackson's left flank with great fury. The men, raw as they were, behaved well and met the assault with spirit. General Coffee rode at once to the point at which the firing was heaviest, and both by his presence and his words animated the men; but the struggle was a severe one, and for a time the left flank was so hard pressed that their ability to hold their position was a matter of some doubt. As soon as it was light enough to see, and hence light enough to move troops from one part of the line to another without danger of producing confusion and panic, a fresh company of infantry was ordered to reinforce the left; and Coffee, who with the adjutant-general, Colonel Sitler, and the inspector-general, Colonel Carroll, for his aids, had assumed the immediate command, ordered the whole line forward, leading the men to one of the most gallant and determined charges of the war. Thus assaulted the Creeks gave way, and after a few moments of irregular resistance fled precipitately, closely pressed both by the troops and by the friendly Indians. Coffee with his usual vigor followed the broken and retreating savages for two miles, inflicting considerable damage upon them.
Then Jackson ordered Coffee to take four hundred men and march to the Indian encampment, about three miles away, and, if it should be practicable, to destroy it. He cautioned the gallant, and perhaps too daring general—who was said by one of his contemporaries to have been "a great soldier without knowing it"—to avoid unnecessary risk, and not to attack the place if it should prove upon inspection to be strong.
Coffee marched at once, taking the single piece of artillery with him; but upon arriving at Emuckfau he found the place so well fortified and the force there so strong that he deemed it important not only to withdraw without attacking, but to hasten his return to the camp lest the army thus divided should be attacked and beaten in detail. It was soon made plain that the attack of the morning had been not much more than a beginning of the Indian attempt to overwhelm Jackson.
Half an hour after Coffee returned the Creeks renewed the battle. A considerable force began the action by making an assault upon Jackson's right flank. As soon as their line was developed Coffee asked permission to turn their left flank—moving from the rear of Jackson's right—with two hundred men. Through some misunderstanding only fifty-four men accompanied Coffee, but that particularly enterprising officer, not to be balked of his purpose or delayed in executing it, dashed on though the woods with his little force, which consisted chiefly of his own officer company, and fell upon the flank of the savages fiercely. Jackson, seeing with how small a force Coffee was making this critical movement, moved two hundred friendly Indians to the right to assist the flanking party by attacking that part of the Indian line in front.
Had the Indian attack been what it appeared to be, the battle would have been decided by the results of this combined blow upon the Indian left—from Jackson's right and Coffee's position beyond; but it was presently apparent that the attack upon the right of Jackson's line was merely a feint designed to distract attention from the real object of the savage leader, and to lead Jackson to strengthen his right at the expense of his left, upon which the savages intended then to fall with crushing force.
In this scheme the Indians were baffled. Jackson, anticipating something of the sort, not only avoided weakening his left, but specially commanded the officers there to expect an attack in force and prepare to meet it.
As soon as the right was fully engaged, the main body of the Indians advanced with spirit and confidence against the left. The assault was well made, the shock falling upon the whole front of the left flank at once; but it was equally well received. For a time the firing was very heavy and at short range; then, knowing that raw troops can stand any amount of active work better than a strain which must be borne passively, Jackson, who had ridden to this part of the field as soon as the alarm was given, ordered his men to cease firing, fix bayonets, charge, and sweep the field. The men behaved, Jackson tells us, with "astonishing intrepidity," and quickly cleared their front, Colonel Carroll leading the charge. The Indians wavered, gave way, and then broke and fled in confusion, under a destructive fire, and with their pursuers close upon their heels.
The friendly Indians did good work whenever actual fighting was going on in their front, but being without that habit of unquestioning obedience which more than any thing else makes the difference between a good soldier and a raw recruit, they could never be depended upon to execute an order the ulterior purpose of which they could not see. In this battle of Emuckfau their habit of acting for the good of the cause upon their own judgment and without regard to orders came near involving Coffee and his company of officers in serious disaster. When Jackson ordered them to the right to co-operate with Coffee, they went gladly and fought well, enabling Coffee to drive the savages in his immediate front into the swamps; but when the firing began on the left they quickly withdrew from the position they had been ordered to occupy, and went to join in themêléeat the other end of the line, without pausing to think of what might befall Coffee in consequence.
No sooner had they gone than the Creeks rallied and attacked Coffee again, well-nigh overwhelming his small force with their greater numbers. Luckily, Coffee was both an able and an experienced officer, and it was equally a fortunate circumstance that his followers, the ex-officers, were the very best troops in the army, else the whole of the little band, including Coffee, an officer whom Jackson could ill have spared, must have been destroyed. The little band fought with desperate determination, holding their ground and keeping the Indians at bay, but having to fight on every side at once. Coffee fell severely wounded, but continued to direct the operations of his men. His aide-de-camp and three others of his followers were killed.