Part 7

On the morning of March 27, 1814, Jackson’s skirmishers came within sight of the Indian encampment. On a peninsula formed by a horseshoe-like bend of the river, a thousand warriors with three hundred of their women and children were encamped. They comprised the very flower of the Creek nation, or rather, all that was left of it. The neck of the peninsula was only four hundred yards wide, and across it the Creeks, profiting by the lessons they had received from their Spanish and British allies, had built a zigzag wall of logs, eight feet high and pierced by a double row of loopholes. The angles formed by the zigzags enabled the defenders to sweep with a deadly cross-fire the ground over which an attacking column must advance, while trees had been felled at intervals in such fashion that their interlaced branches provided admirable cover for sharpshooters. All in all, it was a tough nut that Jackson found himself called upon to crack. But cracking that particular kind of nuts was a specialty of Jackson’s. His artillery consisted of two small brass field-pieces, not much larger than those employed on yachts for saluting purposes. Sending Colonel Coffee across the river with his cavalry to cut off the escape of the Indians in that direction, Jackson planted his miniature field-guns on a little hill only eighty yards from the Creek fortifications. Either the guns must have been very weak or the fortifications very strong, for after a two-hours’ bombardment no appreciable damage had been done. Then Jackson, who was always for getting to hand-grips with an enemy, told his men to go in and do the job with the bayonet. Whereupon the Tennesseeans, who had been as fidgety and impatient as hounds in leash, swept forward with a whoop. As regardless of the withering fire poured into them as if it had been hailstones instead of bullets, they hacked their way through the abatis of branches and clambered over the wall, shooting, bayonetting, clubbing with a ferocity which matched that of the Indians. And, imitating the customs of the savages they had been fighting for so long, many of the frontiersmen paused to scalp the Indians that they killed. For the Creeks it was a hopeless struggle from the first, but they were not of a breed that, finding themselves beaten, whined for mercy. Retreating to such protection as the place afforded, they fought and kept on fighting even after a flag of truce had been sent them with an offer to accept their surrender. By three o’clock the battle of the Horseshoe Bend had become a part of the history of the frontier. So completely had Jackson done his work that only twenty Indians escaped. Eight hundred copper-colored corpses lay upon the blood-soaked ground beside the Tallapoosa; the rest were prisoners. It is a significant fact that there were no wounded among the Indians. The Americans had nearly two hundred killed and wounded, among the latter being Jackson himself and a youngster named Sam Houston, who, in after years, was to win fame fighting a no less savage foe on the banks of the Rio Grande.

The battle of the Horseshoe Bend broke the Creek power of resistance for good and all. Since the commencement of hostilities they had lost in battle nearly three-fourths of all their fighting men. The rest, not much more than a thousand in all, fled to their cousins, the Seminoles, in Florida, where they promptly began hatching plans for vengeance. On the 1st of August, Jackson sent word to such of the chieftains as had not fled into Spanish territory to meet him on the Hickory Ground. Here he received their submission and here he imposed on them his terms of peace. His demands were so rigorous as to bring a gasp of astonishment even from the Americans, for he insisted on the cession of an L-shaped tract of land which included more than half the territory of the Creeks, thus forming a barrier between them and the Choctaws and Chickasaws on the west and the Spaniards in Florida.

Jackson now turned his face toward Nashville. He had ridden out of there an unpopular and almost unknown officer of militia. He returned to find himself a military hero, the stories of whose exploits were retailed in every settler’s cabin from one end of the frontier to the other. In recognition of his services, the President commissioned him a major-general in the regular army and gave him command of the Department of the South, with headquarters at Mobile. Our second war with England had now been dragging its tedious course along for nearly two years, marked by British successes on land and American victories on the sea. The air was filled with rumors of a great British armada which was on its way to attack New Orleans, and these solidified into fact when word reached Jackson that a portion of the British fleet had anchored in the harbor of Pensacola and proposed, in defiance of Spanish neutrality, to use that port as a base of operations against the United States. Pensacola was in Florida, and Florida was still owned by Spain, and Spain was professedly a neutral; but if the British could violate that neutrality, argued Jackson, why, so could the Americans. Without waiting for authority from Washington (and it was well that he did not, for the city had been burned by the British and the government had fled), Jackson crossed the Mobile River and invaded Spanish territory at the head of three thousand veterans. On November 6 he was at the walls of Pensacola. A messenger was sent to the Spanish governor under a flag of truce with a peremptory demand from Jackson that the fortress be turned over to the United States until such time as the Spanish were strong enough to maintain the neutrality of the port. The governor, emboldened by the fact that seven British war-ships were lying in the harbor, showed his defiance by firing upon the flag of truce. But he didn’t know the type of man that he was defying. Jackson was no more awed by the might of England or the majesty of Spain or the sacredness of neutral territory than he had been by the Indians’ “holy ground.” Instantly he ordered forward his storming parties. So sudden was his attack that the British ships had no time to up anchor and bring their guns to bear for the protection of the town. The Spanish soldiery fought well, however, and a sharp battle ensued in the streets, the batteries opening on the advancing Americans with solid shot and grape while a heavy fire of musketry was poured into them from houses and gardens. But the Spaniards were driven back everywhere by the fierceness of the American assault, whereupon the governor, seeing that further resistance was useless, sent a messenger to the American commander to inquire what terms he would grant him. “Nothing but unconditional surrender,” answered Jackson, and the haughty Spaniard had no alternative but to accept his terms. Slowly the flag of Spain, which had flaunted defiantly above the fort, sank down the staff and in its stead rose a flag of stripes and stars. The machinery of conquest, with Andrew Jackson at the crank, had pared off another slice of Florida.

Jackson’s capture of the fortifications having made the harbor untenable, the British blew up the Spanish forts at the Barrancas, which commanded the harbor entrance, and departed, whereupon Jackson evacuated the town. His work in Pensacola was finished. Eight weeks later (January 8, 1815) he won his immortal victory at New Orleans, with his untrained frontiersmen and scanty resources meeting and annihilating the British regiments that had conquered Napoleon. At a single bound he leaped from the status of a backwoods soldier to one of the great leaders of his time.

But the victory at New Orleans and the treaty of peace with England did not mean the end of fighting for Jackson. There were still several odd jobs to be done. During the war a British colonel named Nicholls had been sent on a secret mission to Florida in an attempt to incite the Seminoles, the fugitive Creeks, and the runaway negroes who infested the northern part of the province to harass the borders of the United States. While in Florida he built a fort on the Appalachicola River, not far above its mouth and well within Spanish territory, and collected there a large store of arms and ammunition. When the war ended and Colonel Nicholls was recalled, he turned the fort over to the Seminoles in the hope that it would prove a thorn in the side of the United States. From the Seminoles the place passed into the hands of the negro refugees and quickly became a source of anxiety to the American military authorities on our southern border. But, though it was garrisoned by escaped slaves and was a constant menace to the peace of the frontier, the Americans were powerless--according to international law, at least--because it was built on Spanish soil. But when the matter was referred to Jackson he showed how much he cared for international law by writing to General Gaines that the “Negro Fort,” as it was called, “ought to be blown up, regardless of the ground on which it stands.” That was all the hint that Gaines needed, and in July, 1816, he ordered an expedition under Colonel Duncan Clinch to ascend the river and destroy the fort. As the flotilla approached, a boat’s crew which had been sent forward to reconnoitre was fired upon, whereupon the gunboats were warped up-stream until they were within range. The bombardment was of short duration, for scarcely had the gunboats opened fire before a red-hot shot struck the magazine of the fort, where eight hundred barrels of gunpowder were stored. In the explosion that followed, the fort vanished from the earth, and for some moments it fairly rained negroes--or parts of them. Of the three hundred and thirty-four inmates of the fort, two hundred and seventy were blown to kingdom come, and of the sixty-four left alive, all but three were so terribly injured that they died--which was just as well, perhaps, in view of what happened to two out of the three survivors. These, an Indian chief and Garçon, the negro commander, were handed over to some friendly Seminoles to be put to death in the ingenious Indian fashion in retaliation for the death by torture of one of the American sailors, who had been taken prisoner a few days before. From all accounts, the Seminoles performed their task well but slowly.

The destruction of the Negro Fort, though unimportant in itself, served to stir up the uneasiness and discontent which prevailed along the Florida border and which was shared in by Creeks, Seminoles, Spaniards, and Americans. By March, 1817, several thousand whites had settled on the rich lands that Jackson had taken from the Creeks, and the friction which quickly developed between the new owners and the old ones, now fugitives in Florida, resulted in a series of defiances and depredations. While relations with the Indians were thus strained almost to the breaking point there again sprang up the historic irritation against Spain, whom the American settlers accused, rightly or wrongly, of inciting the Indians against them. Meanwhile President Monroe was negotiating for the purchase of Florida, for he fully realized that there could be no permanent peace along the border as long as that province remained in Spanish hands. Doubtful of his success, however, he took care to see that an army under Jackson was stationed within striking distance, for there is no doubt that the government, now that the war with England was over, was determined to take Florida by force if it could not be obtained by purchase. Nor could anything give Jackson keener satisfaction than the prospect of once more getting his hands on the rich prize which he had joyfully held for a brief moment in 1814. Indeed, he frankly expressed his attitude when he wrote to President Monroe: “Let it be signified to me, through any channel, that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished.” In other words, if the government wished to seize the province but lacked the courage to take the responsibility, Jackson was ready to do the job himself.

But suddenly a new element was injected into the already complicated situation. The series of revolts against Spanish rule in South America had attracted thither European adventurers, freelances, and soldiers of fortune of many nationalities, and these, when the revolutionary business grew dull in other places, turned their eyes toward Florida. It had a fertile soil, marvellous vegetation, a healthful climate, a notoriously weak government, and, everything considered, seemed to have been made to order for the filibusters. The first to make the attempt to “free” Florida was a Scottish nobleman, Sir Gregor MacGregor. No more picturesque character ever swaggered across the pages of our history. He was a prototype of Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King.” Resigning his commission in the British army, he went to Caracas in 1811 and offered his services to the Venezuelans in their struggle for independence. He became adjutant-general to Miranda and, upon the capture of that ill-fated leader, repeatedly distinguished himself in the renewed struggle under Bolivar. He led a handful of Venezuelans from Ocumare to Barcelona in one of the most brilliant and skilfully conducted retreats in history and, upon Venezuela achieving her independence, was publicly thanked for his services by President Bolivar, commissioned a general of division, and decorated with the Order of Libertadores. But an ineradicable love of adventure ran in his veins; so, when peace settled for a time on war-torn Venezuela MacGregor looked elsewhere for excitement. Florida was still under the obnoxious rule of Spain, and Florida, he decided, needed to be freed. Early in 1817, therefore, he fitted out an expedition in Baltimore and descended upon Fernandina, which, as I have previously remarked, is built on the twenty-two-mile-long Amelia Island, off Florida’s upper right-hand corner. MacGregor declared that as soon as he achieved the independence of the province he intended to hand it over to the United States, which was certainly thoughtful and considerate, seeing how much the United States wanted it; but nobody seems to have believed him. His intentions were of small consequence, however, for a few months after he had seized the island and raised the green-cross flag, along came another adventurer, an Englishman named Hubbard, and drove him off. Disappointed in his Floridan ambitions, MacGregor re-entered the service of Venezuela, and in 1819, organizing an expedition in Jamaica, he eluded the vigilance of the British authorities and made a most daring descent upon Puerto Bello, which he captured after a desperate assault, though subsequently he was surprised by an overwhelming force of Spaniards and was forced to flee. In 1821 he quitted the service of Venezuela--then become a part of the Colombian Republic--and settled among the Poyais Indians, a warlike tribe on the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua, where he obtained a grant of a tract of fertile land and, making himself ruler of the region, assumed the title of “his Highness the MacGregor, Cacique of Poyais.” He organized a government, established an army, encouraged commerce and agriculture, built roads and schools, cultivated plantations, and for nearly twenty years ruled in middle America as an independent and enlightened sovereign. But misfortune finally overtook him; Great Britain declared a protectorate over his little kingdom, which was not abrogated until 1905, and its late ruler retired to Caracas, where the Venezuelan Government granted him a pension and restored him to his rank of general of division, and where he died, generally respected, in the early forties.

Shortly after Hubbard had ejected MacGregor from Amelia Island, along came one of the latter’s friends and companions in arms, Commodore Louis de Aury, who, as I have related in “Adventurers All,” had himself been ousted from Galveston Island by Lafitte, and kicked out Hubbard. De Aury’s plan was to make Florida a free and independent republic, such as her sister provinces in South America had become. But it was not to be. The government at Washington, which had other plans for Florida, now decided it was time to interfere, for it seemed probable that Florida might soon be sold to the United States, provided the spirit of revolution and independence which was rapidly stripping Spain of her colonial possessions left her Florida to sell. Nothing was further from the intention of the United States, therefore, than to let these South American adventurers get a foothold in the province she had so long had a covetous eye upon; so, in the autumn of 1817, General Gaines was ordered to march on Fernandina and eject De Aury, while a fleet under Commodore Henley went down the coast for the same purpose. Henley reached there first and successfully accomplished the ejection, and the green-cross flag of the filibusters came down for good and all.

About this time Indian depredations had recommenced along the Florida frontier, and in November, 1817, General Gaines despatched a detachment of troops to an Indian village called Fowltown, the headquarters of the hostile Seminoles and Creeks. The troops approached the town at dawn and were fired upon, the village was taken and burned, and the United States had another Indian war upon its hands. Jackson was immediately ordered to take command of the operations. He jumped at the chance, for was this not the very opportunity for which he had been longing and praying? The Indians caused him no concern, mind you; it was the Spaniards--and Florida--that he was after. Disregarding his instructions to raise his command from the militia of the border States, he recruited a volunteer force from the Tennesseeans who had served under him at the Horseshoe Bend and New Orleans and whom he could count on to follow him anywhere, and with these veterans at his back straightway crossed the Florida border. On the site of the Negro Fort he built and garrisoned another, which he called Fort Gadsden--all this in Spanish territory, mind you, though the United States was (officially, at least) at peace with Spain. Easily dispersing the few Seminoles who ventured to dispute his progress, he pushed southward to St. Marks (the port of Tallahassee), where a war party of Indians, he heard, had taken refuge. The fact that his information was incorrect and that there were no Indians in the town did not disconcert him in the least: he took the place, hauled down the Spanish colors, replaced them with the stars and stripes, and left an American garrison in occupation. Not only this, but he captured two Englishmen who had taken refuge in the town. One was a well-known trader named Alexander Arbuthnot, who had had commercial dealings of one sort and another with the Indians; the other was a young officer of marines named Ambrister, a nephew of the governor of the Bahamas, who had been suspended from duty for a year for engaging in a duel and who had joined the Florida Indians out of a boyish love for adventure. Though captured on Spanish soil, Jackson ordered both men tried by court martial for inciting the Indians to rebellion. Both were sentenced to death. Ambrister died before a firing-party; Arbuthnot was hung from the yard-arm of one of his own ships. Needlessly drastic and unquestionably illegal as these executions were, they brought home to those who were plotting against the United States that Spanish territory could not protect them.

From St. Marks Jackson struck across country to Suwanee, which was the headquarters of the notorious Billy Bowlegs; but in the skirmish that ensued that chieftain and his followers escaped, though, by means of a ruse unworthy of a civilized commander, he captured two of the most celebrated of the Seminole chieftains, Francis and Himollimico. Seeing a vessel enter the harbor, the two chieftains, who had just returned from a visit to England, rowed out and asked to be afforded protection. They were courteously received, laid aside their weapons, and went below to have a drink with the commander, when they were seized, bound, and, upon protesting at this breach of hospitality, were informed that they were prisoners on an American gunboat which Jackson had despatched to patrol the coast in the hope of intercepting fugitives. The next day the two prisoners, by orders of Jackson, were summarily hung. By such ruthless methods as these did the grim backwoodsman, who well deserved the title of “Old Hickory,” which his soldiers bestowed upon him, impress on Indians and Spaniards alike the fact that those who opposed him need expect no mercy. He had reached Fort Gadsden on his return march when a protest against this unwarranted invasion of Spanish territory was sent him by the governor of Pensacola, the same place, you will remember, which he had captured three years before. Jackson, who always carried a chip on his shoulder and lived in hopes that some one would dare to knock it off, turned back on the instant, occupied Pensacola for the second time, captured the governor and his troops, deported them to Havana with a warning never to return, and left an American garrison in occupation. He regretted afterward, as he wrote to a friend, that he had not carried the place by storm and hanged the governor out of hand.

In five months Jackson had broken the Indian power, established peace along the border, and to all intents and purposes added Florida to the Union. Though the Spanish minister at Washington (for after the fall of Napoleon Spain resumed the foreign relations he had so rudely interrupted) vigorously protested against this invasion of the territory of his sovereign, he nevertheless hastened--whether it was intended or not that his movements should be thus accelerated--to negotiate a treaty ceding Florida to the United States in consideration of our paying the claims held by American citizens against Spain to the amount of five million dollars. Though the historians dismiss the subject with the bald assertion that Florida was acquired by purchase--which, no doubt, is technically correct--I think you will agree with me that “conquest” is a more appropriate word and that its conqueror was the backwoods soldier Andrew Jackson. No wonder that the land he gave us yields so many oranges after having been fertilized with so much blood. No wonder that it has restored so many sick men after having swallowed up so many well ones.

THE FIGHT AT QUALLA BATTOO

THE FIGHT AT QUALLA BATTOO

It was so hot that the little group of sailors under the forward awnings lay stretched upon the deck, panting like hunted rabbits, while rivers of perspiration coursed down their naked chests and backs. The unshaded portions of the deck were as hot to the touch as the top of a stove; bubbles of pitch had formed along the seams between the planks, and turpentine was exuding, like beads of sweat, from the spars. Though occasional puffs of land-wind stirred the folds of the American flag which drooped listlessly from the taffrail sufficiently to disclose the legend _Friendship, of Salem_ in raised and gilded letters on the stern, they brought about as much relief to the exhausted men as a blast from an open furnace door. Even the naked Malays who were at work under the direction of a profane and sweating first mate, transferring innumerable sacks of pepper from a small boat to the vessel’s hold, showed the effects of the suffocating atmosphere by performing their task with more than ordinary listlessness and indolence.