Bill OReilly - Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America

A UGUST 30, 1813

F ORT M IMS, A LABAMA

11:00 A.M.

The Creek nation is out for blood.

The red-painted bodies of hundreds of warriors are pressed into the earth, awaiting the signal to attack. These men have hidden since sunrise, intending to kill every person they can. They conceal themselves in a valley four hundred yards outside the new log walls surrounding the sprawling plantation of Samuel Mims. More than six hundred men, women, and children live inside the month-old fort located thirty-five miles north of Mobile. They are comprised of white settlers, Negro slaves, and mixed-race Indians who have adopted white ways. Almost all of them have just hours to live.

The Indian force numbers somewhere between seven hundred and a thousand. Some are not Native American at all but African slaves who have escaped and joined the Creek nation. The warriors are naked, save for a loincloth, to which a red-painted cows tail has been tied at the back. Some wear an owl feather, believing it will give them improved vision. Each warrior has forced himself to drink a strong emetic that has made him vomitagain, in the belief that this will prevent infection if he is stabbed or shot.

Every fighter is armed with a flintlock rifle, as well as a bow and iron-tipped arrows. Their most lethal killing weapon is a two-foot-long war stick carved from dense wood. Almost every man carries one. They have trained countless hours with these war clubs and wield their cudgels with the same finesse shown by master swordsmen. Like the Indians torsos, each club is painted red.

The Creek warriors have waited days and marched in complete stealth for miles, determined to remain unseen and attack with complete surprise. They know the precise moment at which they will attack. They have studied the routines of the fort and are aware that the settlers gather each day for a noon meal. A dinner bell is the signal to come together.

On this morning, the dinner bell will also be the signal to attack.

The Creeks struggle to remain motionless. Insects crawl over their prone bodies. Mosquitoes bite their hands and faces. Beads of sweat sting their eyes as the day grows warmer and the air more humid. The Creeks intent is murder. However, their ultimate goal is survivalfor they believe that only a mass slaughter will prevent intruders from stealing the Creek ancestral homeland.

Just one more hour until the lunch bell clangs.

Inside Fort Mims, a slave belonging to Josiah Fletcher is being tied to the whipping post. He is stripped to the waist. There is no shade here in the center of the fort, and sweat runs down the mans bare flesh. He hears the murmurs of the crowd gathering in a circle around the pole, eager to witness his suffering. The slave presses his body into the rough wood, his torso tensed to absorb one hundred lashes.

Incredibly, the slaves only crime is telling the truth. Yesterday, while working outside the walls, he saw some Creek warriors gathering in the forest. But when he raced back inside to sound a warning, the slave was accused of lying and spreading fear. In the eyes of Fort Mimss military leadership, this is a crime that must be punished.

Few men can survive a hundred lashes. The slave is sure he will die on this spot, bound helplessly to this pole.

Major Daniel Beasley of the Mississippi Volunteers holds the whip, eager to administer the lash. Beasley is forty-five and just shy of six feet tall. Women normally consider him attractive, but this morning Beasleys face is red and puffy, his eyes bloodshot. Even after a stiff drink of whiskey to start the day, Beasleys head throbs from a long night of sucking down alcohol from the fresh barrel that arrived yesterday. It is the job of the major and his 170 militiamen to protect those seeking refuge in Fort Mims. There have been rumors of Indian sightings for more than two weeks. Major Beasley and his men responded immediately in the beginning, but as day after day passed without an attack, he came to no longer consider those warnings credible. The major is so sure the slave is lying about the Indians that he has not even bothered to send his men out into the forest to investigate.

The Creek Indians massacring the inhabitants of Fort Mims, Alabama, 1813

Yet even as the young black man is bound to the post, there is evidence he is telling the truth.

Just an hour ago, a local farmer galloped his horse into the fort, also warning that Creek warriors were nearby. Jim Cornells specifically asked to speak with Major Beasley, then informed him that he had personally seen Indians in the forest.

The twenty-five-year-old Cornells is himself of mixed race, the son of a young Indian woman and a British father. His farm was recently burned to the ground by a group of Creek warriors nicknamed the Red Sticksso called for the brightly painted color of their war weapons. Cornells suffers from a disfigurement known as yaws, common to this humid climate. His condition leaves his face covered with lesions and the skin stretched back on his head, making it difficult for him to speak clearly. This combination of heritage and horrible disfigurement makes Cornellss very presence a source of discomfort to Beasley.

Youve only seen a gang of red cattle, the major insists, his speech so thick that Cornells will later insist Beasley is drunk.

Those red cattle will give you one hell of a kick before night, Cornells responds, still astride his horse.

An enraged Beasley orders his men to arrest the farmer, but Cornells is too fast. He quickly gallops from the fort, straight into the waiting Creek army.

Watching from a hiding place in the woods, the Creek leader, William Weatherford, sees Cornells race away from the fort. Weatherford is in his mid-thirties. He is six foot two and known for his handsome looks, extreme bravery, and dark black eyes. Killing the farmer would spoil the element of surprise, so the warrior leader lets him pass. Yet as the rider goes by, Weatherford notices that no one has bothered to close the east gate to Fort Mims. He is stunned at this incredible lapse in security.