Part 4

Davy’s experience as a scout now began. Major Gibson, who was about to go into the Coosa country to get information about the Indians, asked Captain Jones to let him have two men who could be relied upon as woodsmen and riflemen. The Captain called Davy, who was now twenty-seven, and strong and healthy, with a full beard. Davy expressed his willingness to join the scouting expedition, if he might choose his own mate. This being granted, he picked out a friend named George Russell. When Gibson saw Russell he said he hadn’t beard enough to suit him; he wanted men, not boys. At this Davy’s dander was up, and he told the Major that by this rule a goat would have the call over a man; that he knew what sort of a man Russell was, and that he was not likely to be left behind on a march. Seeing Davy’s warmth, the Major relented and took them both.

The temper of the Western volunteers recalls Maclay’s story of the backwoodsman who took part, on board of the _Hyder Ally_, in Cape May Roads, in the fight with the _General Monk_. He stood near Lieutenant Barney in the action, picking off the enemy with the same deliberation with which he reloaded under a sharp fire. His Buck County blood was up, but his curiosity was not asleep; twice he turned to Barney to ask the same question:

“Say, Cap, who made this gun I’m using?”

Resenting such a breach of naval decorum in a marine, Barney answered him roughly, ignoring the question. But as it was again asked, he sharply inquired his reason for wanting to know.

“W-a-al,” replied the man, with the drawl peculiar to the mountaineers, “this ’ere bit of iron is jes’ the best smoothbore I ever fired in my life.” With the mountaineers’ independence, Andrew Jackson had strenuous dealings before the end of the Creek War.

VI.

FOLLOWING INDIANS

Scouting in the Cherokee country――The Red Sticks on the move――A scared darky comes into camp on the run――Davy makes a sixty-mile ride――Colonel Coffee shows scant appreciation of Davy’s efforts――Old Hickory in command of a hungry army――Burning Black Warrior’s town――The cane-brake and the hogs――More news of the Red Sticks――The Battle of Tallushatchee――One hundred and eighty-five Indians slain――A squaw kills Lieutenant Moore with an arrow.

Evidently in those days there was no superstition about the number 13, for the party with which Davy set out the next morning was of thirteen men, including Major Gibson. The first day they reached and crossed the Tennessee at Ditto’s Landing, and camped seven miles south, guided by an Indian trader. The next day the Major took seven of the men, giving Davy charge of those remaining, with orders to meet him at night fifteen miles beyond the house of a Cherokee named Brown. On the way Davy induced a half-breed, Jack Thompson, to follow the party and come to the place where the Major was to meet them. They travelled through a rather barren country, sometimes across prairie-like land where wild flowers were abundant and beautiful. In the low places were cane-brakes, often fifteen to twenty feet high. The scouts avoided the open spaces, fearing both Indians and snakes, which sometimes crippled or killed a horse.

Night came on without the Major appearing, and Crockett’s squad camped among the trees, away from the Indian trail. The hoot of an owl came floating through the silence of the evening, and was at once answered by Davy. It was the signal of the half-breed, who soon afterward came into the gleam of their fire. The morning broke, and there was still no news of the other party of scouts. As usual, Davy decided to go ahead, and passed through a Cherokee village, twenty miles farther south, reaching the house of a squaw-man, named Radcliff, in time for dinner. This man they found badly scared. He told them that ten painted Creeks had left the place during the forenoon; if they learned that he had fed the scouts, they would kill his whole family and burn the house. When dinner was over, Davy found that a few of his men wanted to turn back; they said that the party was too small to venture into the Creek country, just before them. But Davy knew that some of the men would stand by him, and he determined to go ahead. When he started on the whole party went along, for the few who wished to go back were afraid to do so alone. Soon after dark they reached a camp of some friendly Creeks. It was a strange condition of affairs, when some of the Indians of this tribe could be trusted, while others were slinking through the woods, smeared from head to foot with vermilion, and fierce for blood.

The moon was at its full, and for a while Davy and his men tried their skill with the bows and arrows of the Indian boys. While they were doing this, a scared negro who had joined them during the day warned them that the Red Sticks were likely to surprise them, but they made light of his fears. They tied their horses ready to mount at a second’s notice, and lay with their guns by their sides. They had scarcely dozed when a cry like that of an angry panther rang through the night. The negro shouted that the Red Sticks were coming, and every one stood at bay. Then an Indian appeared in the bright moonlight, with the news that the war party had been crossing the Coosa all day at the Ten Islands, on their way to fight Jackson’s army, then gathering at Fayetteville, in Tennessee.

In a few minutes every Indian in the camp had fled, while Davy and his men “put out in a long lope” on the back trail, to give notice to the force they had left at the landing, sixty-five miles away. At the Cherokee town they found great fires blazing, but no Indians. Radcliff and his family had disappeared. At daylight they came to Brown’s house, where they ate hurriedly and then pushed on. Having crossed the Tennessee, they reached the volunteers’ camp, and reported to Colonel Coffee. To Davy’s disgust, the Colonel seemed to place little confidence in the story he had to tell, so far as the imminence of danger was involved. The little band of scouts had ridden their tired horses sixty-five miles in eleven hours by moonlight, and had forded the river, and they were disgusted by their reception. Davy said that he was burning inside like a tar-kiln, and wondered that the smoke was not pouring out of him as he withdrew.

The next day the Major came into camp with a similar report, which set Colonel Coffee into what Davy called “a fidget.” He at once threw up breastworks twelve hundred feet long, and dispatched a messenger to hurry up Jackson’s army. It always rankled in Davy’s memory that the word of a common soldier and scout could be so lightly held, while the Major’s report was never doubted for a moment. Davy had much to learn in a world where so many unjustly receive pay and praise for work that is done by obscure toilers. The forty thousand French who lay dead or dying that week before the walls of Leipzig are nameless now, but Napoleon is not forgotten. Davy’s sense of the unfairness of Fame may be the reason for his later enmity towards Andrew Jackson. When, years afterward, he told of the forced march that brought Old Hickory and his troops to the support of Coffee, he called the General “Old Hickory Face.”

Still suffering and weak from his wound, Jackson arrived at Huntsville with his command the next day, October 11, 1813. The men were wearied with the forced march, and their feet were blistered and lame, so they went to their tents while the volunteers kept watch for the enemy. Although now in charge of at least two thousand men, Jackson was without supplies, and at this time Major Reid, of his staff, wrote to a friend:

“At this place [Thompson’s Creek, on the Tennessee] we remain a day to establish a depot for provisions; but where these provisions are to come from, God Almighty only knows. I speak seriously when I declare that we may soon have to eat our horses, which may be the best use we can put a great many of them to.”

Of Davy’s movements between October 11th and the following month, we have no account, but he could have played only a minor part in the waiting game that took place. But one day in November, Coffee, with eight hundred volunteers, including Davy’s company, went west to Mussel Shoals, where they crossed the Tennessee, losing some of their horses in the dangerous and rocky fording. From there the expedition struck south, crossing the Warrior River, to Black Warrior’s town, near the present site of Tuscaloosa. Here they found some corn and a lot of dried beans, but no Indians. They burned the town, and turned back to meet the main army at the place where Davy and his scouts had waited in vain for Major Gibson, in October. The next day the supply of meat gave out, and Davy went to Coffee and asked permission to hunt while the march progressed. He says Coffee told him he might do so, but to take good care of himself. Within an hour he found a freshly-killed deer, skinned and still warm. He knew that an Indian must have fled at his approach, and, even under the conditions, had scruples against taking the meat. What he tells of this is so typical of his character that it should be repeated:

“Though I was never much in favor of one hunter stealing from another, yet meat was so scarce in camp that I thought I must go in for it. So I just took up the deer on my horse before me, and carried it on till night. I could have sold it for almost any price I would have asked; but this wasn’t my rule, neither in peace nor war. Whenever I had anything, and saw a fellow-being suffering, I was more anxious to relieve him than to benefit myself. And this is one of the secrets of my being a poor man to this day. But it is my way; and while it has often left me with an empty purse, which is as near the devil as anything else I have ever seen, yet it has never left my heart empty of consolations which money couldn’t buy, of having sometimes fed the hungry and covered the naked.”

Davy kept enough of the deer for his own mess, and gave the rest away. Most of the men were living on parched corn.

The day after, they made camp near a large cane-brake. In these brakes, the cane, of which the scientific name is _Arundinaria Macrosperma_, is an arborescent grass, dying down in the winter, but growing to a height of twenty feet, in some places, during the summer. Into this brake, impassable except for paths made by cattle and swine, Davy went with his rifle after meat. In a short time he found a number of hogs, and as he shot one of them the whole drove started towards camp. The roar of guns and the squealing of the hogs sounded like an Indian massacre. Most of the hogs and a fat cow were the results of his activity, and for these an order on Uncle Sam was given the people of the Cherokee town where they stopped the next day. Before night they met Jackson’s army, and turned south with them. At Radcliff’s place they found his two big half-breed sons, and, having learned that he had sent the runner who had so alarmed the camp with the news of the Red Sticks’ approach, they forced them to serve as soldiers, to repay Radcliff for what was intentionally a false alarm.

At a place named Camp Wills, Coffee was made a General, and other promotions were announced. The next point reached was Ten Islands, on the Coosa River, and here they heard of a gathering of Red Sticks at a town ten miles distant. Jackson sent nine hundred men, under General Coffee, to attack them. Part of the force was made up of friendly Cherokees, under their chief, known as Dick Brown. To prevent being mistaken for the enemy, these Indians wore white feathers and deer-tails on their heads.

At daybreak, Colonel Allcorn, with the cavalry, in which Davy served, went to the right of the line of march, while Coffee and Colonel Cannon kept to the left, soon enclosing the town completely with a cordon of horse and foot. The Indians discovered their approach, and manifested their defiance with yells and frantic beating of their drums. As they refused to come out, Captain Hammond and two companies of rangers advanced to bring on the action. The Indians seem to have believed this small force to be all with whom they had to deal, for, as Davy says, they soon came at them “like so many red devils.” As the rangers fell back, the main army line was reached, and the fight was on. The Creeks fired a volley and ran back to their huts. Slowly the cordon of soldiers closed upon them, and one of the most desperate Indian fights of history took place. The Red Sticks asked no quarter, firing from the shelter of their cabins until they were shot dead by the soldiers who came to their doors, or charging with shrill war-cries between the impassable walls of gleaming rifles that surrounded them. Refusing quarter even from the Cherokees, whom they had known as friends before, they fought till they could no longer lift their guns or draw their knives in a last effort.

According to Crockett’s story of the affair, the squaws rushed through the hail of bullets to ask for mercy. Many of them were accidentally shot in the houses with the men, but that was unavoidable. Every brave was killed, and eighty-four women and children were taken prisoners. General Coffee counted one hundred and eighty-six dead Indians, while of his own force but five were killed and forty wounded.

The difference in the mortality between the two sides is remarkable. The red man never knew how hopeless a battle he fought with the Juggernaut of Civilization. All his savage energy could avail against the pioneer no more than the throne of Hardicanute, on Britain’s shore, could turn the wild and angry waves of the North Sea.

During the fight, many of the Creeks took refuge in one of the houses of the town. As the soldiers closed in, a squaw who sat in the doorway with a bow and arrow put her feet against the bow, placed an arrow, pulled with all her might, and killed Lieutenant Moore, outright. The act so enraged the soldiers that she was riddled with bullets, and the house, with the forty-six Indians in it, was burned. A boy of twelve, who had been wounded, was seen by Davy so near the burning house that he was being scorched by the heat; yet this brave lad made no sound, nor did he ask for help.

Though they had gained a decisive victory, the soldiers were in terrible straits for food, and when everything in sight had been eaten, they learned that “Hunger is sharper than the Sword.”

VII.

HARD FIGHTING

The friendly Indians besieged at Talladega――Jackson sends them help――The attempted ambush――“Painted scarlet, and naked as when they were born”――The battle of Talladega, and the bleaching skulls――Mutiny of the volunteers――Davy goes home when his time is up and reënlists――The Indian victory at Enotachopco Creek――Davy is in a furious fight――One hundred volunteers killed or wounded――English Intrigue at Pensacola――Davy’s visit to that place――Many stirring adventures in the Escambia River country――Davy is hungry enough to climb a tree after a squirrel――With powder and lead he buys corn from an Indian――Home at last.

Early in November, 1813, Jackson built a fort at Ten Islands, on the north shore of the Coosa River, and many refugees came within its stockades. It was called Fort Strother, after the owner of the place on which it stood. On the 7th of the month an Indian runner arrived with bad news from the friendly town of Talladega, where a small fort had been built. One hundred and fifty peaceable Creeks were besieged by more than a thousand Red Sticks and their allies. The latter had given the fort three days to surrender, and relied on thirst and hunger to bring their intended victims to terms. The runner who came to Jackson is said to have disguised himself as a hog, in order to escape in the woods near-by. Jackson resolved to save the friendly Indians at any risk. Their faithfulness could not be unrewarded. They had refused all attempts to turn their allegiance, and when the enemy tried to induce them to help whip Jackson’s army and secure the booty that might be expected, they were repulsed with scorn. Just after midnight Jackson began crossing the river with two thousand men, of whom eight hundred were mounted. He relied upon the arrival of General White, with his men, to protect Fort Strother.

It was sun-up of the 8th when the little army came in sight of Talladega, and deployed to right and left, for the purpose of surrounding the hostile Creeks. Only through the bravery of the beleaguered Indians were the companies under Major Russell and Captain Evans saved from an ambush. As they drew near to the fort, the friendly Indians within shouted in welcome:

“How do, brother? How do?”

This they kept up till Major Russell had passed the fort and was headed for the brush-covered creek behind it, where the enemy waited to surprise him. The friendly Creeks tried in vain to call him to a halt, and at last two of them leaped from the walls, ran to his horse’s head, and pointed out the danger. At once the hidden warriors fired on them, and, to quote Crockett’s description of the event, “They came forth like a cloud of Egyptian locusts, screaming as if all the young devils had been turned loose, with the old devil of all at their head. They were all painted scarlet, and were as naked as when they were born.”

Leaving their horses, Russell’s men made for the fort. As the cordon of soldiers rushed to enclose them in an ever-narrowing ring of fire, the ill-fated Red Sticks fell in heaps. Many of them were armed only with bows and arrows――futile weapons, even against flintlock guns. Four hundred painted braves fell before the survivors broke through the line of drafted militia and escaped. When Davy returned that way, a year afterward, he saw the bleaching skulls scattered about like gourds upon a winter field.

At Fort Strother, after returning from Talladega, the volunteers, whose sixty days were long elapsed, asked to go home for fresh horses and clothing, but Jackson, who felt that he needed every man, refused permission. White had failed him, following orders from General Cocke, and the situation was a bad one. The volunteers were within their rights, but the General was determined, and as they prepared to leave, he covered with cannon, and the guns of his other troops, a bridge that must be crossed on leaving camp. Of this affair a dramatic account is given in Eggleston’s history of the war. He tells us that behind the cannoneers with matches lit, their general gave the malcontents a few seconds in which to go back, with the promise of shot and shell if they refused; and then, the story runs, the mutineers gave in and asked for terms.

Davy Crockett says that the discontented volunteers, with flints picked and guns primed, marched across the bridge, amid the clicking of the gun-locks of the militia, some of whom had run at the battle of Talladega. He says they were determined to fight their way, or die together. The merits of this affair are in dispute, but Davy and his company returned to Tennessee, where many reënlisted after a time. It may be set down for certain that from that day Davy was no friend of Jackson.

When Davy returned to the Creek country, he went to serve the balance of six months, although his term of two months had expired. Jackson now had less than a thousand whites, with about two hundred and fifty Cherokees and friendly Creeks. One of the companies was made up of officers whose men had gone home. Major Russell was in command of a body of scouts, of whom Davy was one.

It is strange that such a small force could not be supplied with provisions. It seems to have been in no way backed up by the Government. But in the East matters had not gone well. Perry’s victory and other naval successes had not made the New Englanders any more loyal. Their pockets had suffered, and the prizes won in privateering were only a partial salve for their losses. The war with the Alabama nations was not regarded as a matter of importance on the Atlantic coast.

It was from the ranks of the ill-fed volunteers of Kentucky and Tennessee that victory was to come. The battle of New Orleans was fought after the conclusion of peace, but the capture of that city by Pakenham would have meant more war. Jackson knew the danger of Indian victories, and with his hungry and ragged troops and scouts fought regardless of odds. Davy Crockett was one of the men who learned to know what hunger was, but he was eager to be in the hottest of the trouble, and never had enough.

In January, 1814, Jackson’s little army pushed on to the Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River, and camped in a hollow square, with every prospect of being attacked by hostiles, who were in great numbers in the vicinity. Two hours before dawn, the pickets were heard firing. Throwing brush on the camp-fires, the volunteers waited for the attack, expecting to see the Indians by the glare of the flames; but the Creeks kept out of sight, and were themselves aided in aiming by the light in the camp. Four whites were killed and a number wounded, and although several charges were made, Jackson found it necessary to retreat. The dead were burned, to prevent their being scalped, and the force fell back to the Enotachopco Creek. Some historians have called this affair a victory!

When the army was about to cross the creek, the savages fell on the rear guard, which Colonel Carroll was commanding. On the right flank Colonel Perkins was in charge, and on the left Colonel Stump. Carroll did his duty bravely, but the other Colonels fled and their men followed them. As Stump rode frantically past Jackson, the General tried to cut down the coward with his sword, but missed him. Colonel Carroll was thus left with only twenty-five men, and was in danger of being cut to pieces by the yelling and triumphant warriors.

Then the scouts under Russell, with the aid of the artillerymen, who had only one six-pound cannon, sprang to the aid of the rear guard, and Davy had a chance to fight that must have satisfied him. While the artillerymen were dragging the piece up the bank of the creek and loading it with grape, Davy’s company, led by old Major Russell, rushed across the stream and attacked the left flank of the Indians, who outnumbered the whites ten to one. Constantine Perkins and Craven Jackson, of the cannoneers, at last swept the ranks of the savages, huddled in the narrow descent to the creek, with a hail of grape. Then the scouts fell on the demoralized enemy, who took to the woods, and Jackson’s army was saved. One hundred and eighty-nine dead Indians were counted after this fight, and twenty volunteers were killed and seventy-five wounded.

It is worth while to consider the iron tenacity of Old Hickory, in the face of such disastrous losses. Practically without an army, and with no supplies for the friendly Creeks, he renewed his appeals to the people of Tennessee and Kentucky, and hopefully awaited their response. Every day of delay made the danger greater, for the Creeks were constantly securing firearms and powder and lead from the British agents at Pensacola.

The spectacle of the English unloading guns and scalping-knives for the savages at a Spanish port has always been miserable to look upon. But in 1865, after the surrender of Lee had ended the Civil War, twenty-five cases of Colt’s Navy revolvers, received via London, were taken from the warehouse of the Confederate Agent at St. George’s in the Bermuda Islands, sold to an American, and sent to New York on the bark _Palo Alto_. The Southern army had Hartford revolvers, via England and the blockade, with which to fight the brothers of the men who made them. Until the United States Government prohibited the shipping of beef to Nassau, Bermuda, and Havana, there was a supply sent to the Confederates through the blockade, as best it could be, by New York dealers. There is no use in the pot calling the kettle black.