Chapter I
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The Creek War - Jackson's First Service Is Appointed Commander in-Chief of the Tennessee Forces Co-Operation of Other States Jackson Enters the Creek Nation Difficulties of His Position General Coffee's Expedition Relieves Fort Talladega Battle of Stormy Condition of His Army Quells a Mutiny Abandoned by His Troops Quells a Second Mutiny His Boldness A Third Mutiny Suppressed Left with but a Hundred Followers Clairborne's Movements Arrival of Reinforcements Makes a Diversion in Favor of General Floyd Battle of Nutessee Battle of Emuckfaw Ambuscade of the Indians Gallantry of General Coffee Battle of the "Horse Shoe" The War Ended Jackson's Character
Allusion has been made to Jackson's campaign against the Creeks, but I purposely omitted an account of its progress, preferring to go back and make a continuous narrative. Although embracing a portion of two years, it composed a single expedition, and forms a whole which loses much of its interest by being contemplated in parts. After the cowardly surrender of General Hull, at Detroit, in the commencement of the war, Jackson offered his services to the government, and solicited the post which was assigned to Winchester. Disappointed in this, he repaired, at the order of the Secretary of War, to Natchez, to assist Wilkinson, then stationed there, to repel the attacks of the enemy should they advance up the Mississippi. But no danger from an attack in that quarter appearing, he was directed to disband his troops. Refusing to do this, on account of the number of sick in camp, many of them sons of his neighbors and friends, he became involved in a quarrel both with Wilkinson and his own officers. He, however, carried out his measures and led his men back in safety to their homes.
(1813.)
Here he remained idle till the massacre at Fort Mimms, the news of which, together with the rising of the Indians all along our southern frontier, burst like a sudden thunder-clap on the neighboring States. Georgia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, flew at once to arms. On the 17th of September a mass meeting assembled at Nashville, which with one voice nominated Jackson commander-in-chief of the troops of the State. Ten days after, the nomination was confirmed by the Legislature, and 200,000 dollars voted to carry on the war. Jackson immediately issued a stirring appeal to the people, in which, after describing the state of things, he urged them to assemble to his standard with all speed, saying, "Already are large bodies of the hostile Creeks marching to your borders, with their scalping-knives unsheathed to butcher your women and children: time is not to be lost. We must hasten to the frontier, or we shall find it drenched in the blood of our citizens." At this time he was suffering from a disabled arm which had been mutilated in an encounter with Benton, and was unable to be present at Fayetteville, the rendezvous, on the 4th of October; but he sent an address to be read to the troops, and rules regulating the police of the camp. Although too feeble to take the field, he, three days after, with his arm in a sling, put himself at the head of the army. The next evening, a dispatch arrived from Colonel Coffee, who had been previously sent forward with a large detachment to Huntsville, thirty-two miles distant, stating that a body of nearly a thousand Indians were on their way to ravage the frontiers of Georgia, and another party approaching Tennessee. The day after came a second express confirming the report. By nine o'clock the following morning, Jackson put his army of twenty-five hundred men in motion, and at eight in the evening reached Huntsville, making the thirty-two miles in eleven hours. Finding that the rumor was without foundation, he proceeded leisurely to Ditto's Landing, where Col. Coffee with his regiment was encamped. Here he paused to wait for supplies, and survey his position.
With promptness on the part of those co-operating with him, he saw that the hostile Creeks could be crushed with one blow; for on the west of their settlements were six hundred Mississippi volunteers and the 3d regiment of regular infantry, six hundred strong, under Colonel Russel; on the east were twenty-five hundred Georgia militia, commanded by General Floyd; while from the north, five thousand volunteers and militiatwenty-five hundred from East Tennessee, under Generals Cocke and White, and the same number from the western section of the Statewere moving down on the devoted tribes. This army of five thousand Tennesseans was under his own command, the western half of which he led in person. There were, besides this formidable array, a few posts held by small detachments, and a few hundred friendly Indians, most of them Cherokees. When these separate armies should close around the hostile settlements, encircling them in a girdle of fire, it was universally believed that the war would be over.
While Jackson remained at Ditto's Landing, waiting anxiously for the supplies which Generals Cocke and White had promised to forward, he dispatched General Coffee, with six hundred picked men, to destroy Blackwarrior town, a hundred miles south.
At length, being urged by the earnest appeals of friendly Indians, who were in daily danger of being cut off by the Creeks, he, on the 19th, started for Thompson's Creek, where he had ordered the provisions, which he supposed were near at hand, to be stopped. Cutting his way through the heavy forests, and dragging his artillery over steep mountains, he at length, after a painful march of two days, reached the place of dept but no provisions had arrived. Instead of supplies, came a letter from General White, who was at Lookout Mountain in the Cherokee country, stating that no flour could be spared from that post. His position was now becoming painful and critical. Standing in the centre of the wilderness, on the borders of the enemy's country, with his little band around him, he saw no alternative but to retreat, unless he ran the risk of starving in the forest. But to abandon his design, would leave the friendly Indians at the mercy of their enemies, an act not only cruel in the extreme, and utterly repugnant to his nature, but which would furnish a fatal example to the other friendly tribes, whose alliance it was of the highest importance to secure. Prudence would have dictated a retreat, but Jackson had never yet turned his back voluntarily on a foe, and he resolved, at all hazards, to proceed. Sending off expresses to Generals Cocke and White, and to the Governors of Tennessee and Georgia, and the American agents in the Choctaw and Cherokee nations, he issued a stirring address to his troops, in which he promised them that the "order to charge would be the signal for victory." In urging on them the importance of coolness, and presence of mind, in every emergency, even in "retreat," he adds,
