CHAPTER XVIII.
GENERAL COCKE'S CONDUCT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
It is necessary now to explain the circumstances which left Fort Strother without the garrison under General White, which General Jackson had provided for its defence during his absence, and to show to what consequences this failure of the East Tennessee commander to co-operate with General Jackson presently led. The writers upon these historical events differ very widely in their judgment of the case, and most of them severely censure General Cocke, attributing his conduct to an unworthy jealousy. His rank was the same as that of General Jackson; but, as was said in a former chapter, Jackson's commission was the older one, and hence if Cocke had joined his "ranking officer," Jackson would have been in command of the whole force. It was alleged at the time and afterward that both the East Tennessee troops and their commander were jealous of Jackson and his army, and envious of that army's success. To this unworthy motive General Cocke's conduct has generally been attributed. Mr. Pickett, in his History of Alabama, gives an account of the matter, which is substantially the same as those given by Drake in his Book of the Indians, and by most other writers.
In that account he says, without doubt or qualification, that the want of concert between the two divisions of the army grew "out of a jealousy of the former [the East Tennessee division], and a strong desire to share some of the glory which the latter had already acquired in the few battles they had fought."
Mr. Parton, in his Life of Andrew Jackson, gives a different version of the affair, attributing General Cocke's course to his earnestness in the cause, and his knowledge of certain facts which were unknown to General Jackson. To that we shall come presently; but while General Cocke's statement, upon which Mr. Parton founds his opinion, is certainly entitled to consideration, it must not be forgotten that General Cocke was under at least implied orders to join Jackson – orders which he was bound as a soldier to obey, whatever his judgment may have dictated; that whatever he may have known, there were two or three things which he did not know; that one of these things unknown to him – namely, the departure of Jackson from Fort Strother – made his obedience to orders very necessary to the successful execution of Jackson's plans; and that his want of knowledge of another fact led to the perpetration of a fearful outrage – the driving of Indians who were disposed to become peaceful into fierce hostility, and the increase of the ferocity of the war. It was General Cocke's business to obey his orders, expressed or necessarily implied. For reasons which he thought good, he neglected to do so, and great evil resulted.
On the march southward Cocke's army had destroyed two or three deserted Indian villages, but had had no encounter with the enemy. When General Cocke arrived within a few days' march of Fort Strother he detached General White and sent him to Turkey Town. Thence White marched to Tallushatchee, intending to attack the place, but he arrived there after Coffee had destroyed the force gathered at that point, although his visit was on the same day. As he was marching to join Jackson, it does not very clearly appear why General White did not follow Coffee to the camp of the main body. He returned to Turkey Town instead, and from that point reported to Jackson, as we have seen, just as the army was about to march upon Talladega. He was at once ordered to advance and replace Jackson's force at the fort, but before he could execute the order he received the instructions from General Cocke already referred to, directing him to turn back and join the East Tennessee division at the mouth of the Chattooga River. Believing that in a case of conflicting orders it was his duty to obey that which came from his immediate superior, General White obeyed Cocke rather than Jackson.
Cocke had determined upon a separate operation against the Hillabees, and sending White to one of the Hillabee towns, that officer surprised and destroyed it on the 18th of November, killing sixty of the Hillabees and taking two hundred and fifty prisoners, mostly women and children. Pickett says, "The Hillabees, it is asserted, made not the slightest resistance. At all events, not a drop of Tennessee blood was spilt."
The unfortunate feature of this affair was that to the Indians it wore the appearance of the basest and cruelest treachery. These Hillabees had been great sufferers at Jackson's hands in the battle of Talladega, and becoming convinced by the result of that battle that resistance was useless, they determined to surrender and make peace. They sent Robert Grayson, an old Scotchman who had lived among them for many years, to Jackson's camp to sue for peace, proposing to lay down their arms, and to comply with whatever terms Jackson might impose upon them. As the object of the war was not to kill the Creeks in wantonness, but to secure peace and good conduct at their hands, Jackson properly regarded the proposed surrender of the Hillabee tribe as the richest fruit of the campaign. Accordingly, he sent Grayson back to them with a lecture, and an acceptance of their capitulation. He said to them: "Upon those who are disposed to become friendly, I neither wish nor intend to make war; but they must afford evidences of the sincerity of their professions. The prisoners and property they have taken from us and the friendly Creeks must be restored. The instigators of the war and the murderers of our citizens must be surrendered."
While Jackson was yet rejoicing in the belief that his hard-fought battle at Talladega and the hardships endured upon that expedition had accomplished so much more than the mere defeat of the enemy there, his work was utterly undone by the ill-timed and unfortunate expedition of White against the Hillabees. These people knew nothing of the divided councils of the Tennessee army, and when White came down upon one of their towns, while their messenger was still absent upon his errand of peace, they naturally supposed that their assailants were Jackson's men, and that he had sent them as his relentless messengers to answer the Hillabee prayer for peace with the merciless stroke of the sword. Convinced that Jackson was implacable, and that no hope remained to them, the Hillabees fled from all their towns and joined the hostile forces, wherever bodies of them could be found. Drake says, in the Book of the Indians:
"The Indians thought they had been attacked by General Jackson's army, and that therefore they were now to expect nothing but extermination; and this was thought to be the reason why they fought with such desperation afterwards. And truly they had reason for their fears; they knew none but Jackson, and supposed now that nothing short of their total destruction would satisfy him, as their conduct exemplified on every occasion. They knew they had asked peace on any terms, and their immediate answer was the sword and bayonet."
In acting as he did, without first consulting with General Jackson and learning both the exact situation of affairs and the nature of his superior officer's purposes, General Cocke did wrong in a military sense. Of this there seems to be no room whatever for doubt or question, and as his wrong-doing led to disastrous results, it was altogether natural that both General Jackson and the historians should severely censure the offending officer, as they did; General Jackson being violently exasperated, as well he might be, when he learned the full results of the blunder.
In saying as we do, that General Cocke was clearly culpable for acting as he did, we do not necessarily imply that his course was dictated by the jealousy and envy to which it has been attributed, or indeed by unworthy motives of any kind. His motives may, perhaps, have been perfectly unselfish; his conduct the result merely of bad judgment, or of inaccurate notions of military duty; but to establish these facts is only to palliate, not to excuse his offence. It is unjust, however, in any discussion of these matters, to neglect the defence which General Cocke made of his conduct.
That defence was made in the autumn of the year 1852, in a letter published in the National Intelligencer, and was prompted by the publication of certain criticisms upon General Cocke's conduct. In the letter he says:
"About the 1st of October I rendezvoused my troops at Knoxville, and they mustered into service; and on the twelfth day after, I took up the line of march. I encamped with my command on the banks of the Coosa, which was the dividing line between the Cherokee and Creek Indians, where I was compelled to halt for want of provisions for my own command; and at no time after I left Knoxville had I more than five days' rations for my army. At this point I waited for supplies from the contractor, but owing to the low water they did not arrive, and I was compelled to procure supplies from the Cherokees as best I could. General White joined me with his brigade in a starving condition upon the second day after my arrival on the Coosa."
Mr. Parton offers the following comment upon this part of the letter and upon the situation:
"It thus appears that while General Jackson was anxiously looking for supplies from General Cocke, General Cocke himself was as destitute as General Jackson. A junction of the two armies would have had the sole effect of doubling Jackson's embarrassments, inasmuch as he would have had five thousand men to feed in the wilderness instead of twenty-five hundred, and would have required twenty wagon-loads of provisions daily instead of ten. General Cocke knew this; knew that Jackson's anxiety for a junction had arisen from an expectation that the East Tennesseeans would bring supplies with them; did not know that Jackson's dash at Talladega had left Fort Strother unprotected – did not know any thing about the Hillabees' suing for peace, and Jackson's favorable reply to them."
This, we say, is at most only a palliation of the offence. General Cocke did not know, as Mr. Parton says, that Jackson's anxiety for a union of the two armies was due to his expectation that the East Tennesseeans would bring supplies with them, because that was not the fact. He did expect them to bring provisions, but his anxiety for a junction was not altogether on that account. He wanted White's men for a garrison for Fort Strother, and hence General Cocke only believed that which Mr. Parton assumes that he knew. Again, if the junction had been made, and the doubling of the number of men had embarrassed Jackson, it would have been easy for him to separate the forces again. Moreover, after the Hillabee expedition was ended, General Cocke was ready and willing to join Jackson, while the scarcity of provisions remained; if his reason for not forming the junction was good in the one case, it was good also in the other. Indeed, General Cocke has himself contradicted the plea which Mr. Parton makes in his behalf. While General White was still absent on the Hillabee expedition, General Cocke wrote a letter to Jackson, in which he said:
"I entertain the opinion that to make the present campaign as successful as it ought to be, it is essential that the whole force from Tennessee should act in concert. I have despatched all my mounted men, whose horses were fit for duty, on the Hillabee towns, to destroy them. I expect their return in a few days. I send the bearer to you for the sake of intelligence as to your intended operations, and for the sake of assuring you that I will most heartily agree to any plan that will be productive of the most good."
From the fact that he thus arranged to put himself within the range of Jackson's authority as soon as his Hillabee campaign should be ended, the inference is inevitable that General Cocke neglected to make the contemplated earlier junction in order that he might carry out this little scheme of his own. Inasmuch as a court-martial, composed of officers who, General Cocke says, were his bitterest enemies and Jackson's closest friends, fully acquitted the accused officer of guilt, it is only fair to the memory of a brave and conscientious soldier to believe that he acted for the good of the cause; that his anxiety to deal a blow at the Hillabees was prompted by a desire to serve the ends of the campaign, not by unworthy jealousy of Jackson; but beyond this it does not appear to be possible to go. We may properly acquit General Cocke of petty envy, and of conscious insubordination, but it is impossible not to see that his course was ill-judged as well as calamitous in its results, and it is impossible also to blame Jackson for his displeasure with his subordinate. The most that General Cocke establishes in his defence, which is elaborate, is that he acted in accordance with the unanimous opinion of his field officers; that he conscientiously believed that his course was the best one to be pursued in the circumstances, and that it was dictated solely by his earnest desire to serve the cause. The most that is proved against him appears to be, that he acted with smaller regard to strict military rules than an officer of his rank should have done. He was guilty of a blunder, not of a crime.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE CANOE FIGHT
With the affairs already described, Jackson's campaign came to a halt by reason of his want of supplies, and on account of mutinous conduct upon the part of his men. For many weeks the Tennessee army did nothing, but remained at Fort Strother, while the war went on in other parts of the field. For the present, therefore, we leave Jackson, to follow the course of affairs elsewhere.
The autumn having brought with it the necessity of gathering what remained of the crops in that part of the country which lies on the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, the settlers there did what they could to clear the country of prowling bands of Indians. They sent out bodies of armed men in different directions, and under protection of such forces as they could muster, began gathering the ripened corn.
The danger of famine, if the corn should be allowed to perish in the fields, seems also to have aroused General Flournoy from his dream of strict adherence to law and treaty in his treatment of the Creeks. His predecessor, General Floyd, had refused, it will be remembered, to permit General Claiborne to invade the Creek Nation early in the war, when that officer confidently believed that he could speedily conquer a peace by pursuing that course. Flournoy now receded from the position then taken, so far at least as to order Claiborne to advance with his army and protect the citizens while they should gather their crops. He still ordered no resolute invasion of the Creek territory, for the purpose of transferring the seat of war to the soil of the enemy, and putting an end to the strife; but he ordered Claiborne to drive the Indians from the frontier, and even to follow them so far as the towns which lay near the border, instructing him to "kill, burn, and destroy all their negroes, horses, cattle, and other property, that cannot conveniently be brought to the depots."
General Flournoy, like General Floyd, appears to have been somewhat too highly civilized for the business in which he was engaged. Knowing, as he did, that Claiborne was fighting savages who had violated every usage and principle of civilized warfare, who were prowling about in the white settlements murdering every white man, woman, and child whom they could find, and who had committed the most horrible wholesale butchery at Fort Mims; knowing all this, and knowing too that an army from Tennessee was already invading the Creek country from the north, General Flournoy appears to have given Claiborne this half-hearted and closely-limited permission to fight the Creeks upon their own terms and their own soil with great reluctance and with apologetic misgivings. He set forth his conviction that even the little which he was now permitting Claiborne to do toward making the war real on the white side was not in accordance with the usages of civilized nations at war; but excused himself for his departure from those usages by citing the conduct of the enemy in justification of it. A stronger man than General Flournoy would have seen that the Creeks had turned complete savages, that they had begun a savage warfare for the extermination of the whites, and that such a war could be brought to an end only by the destruction of the white people whom he was set to protect, or by the prompt, resolute, and complete subjugation of the Creeks. Seeing this, such an officer would have seen that the Creeks could be conquered only by the invasion of their territory with fire and sword, and with no respect whatever for those rights which were theirs in peace, but which had been forfeited in the war. It seems incredible that General Flournoy, in such circumstances and with such an enemy to contend with, should have muddled his head and embarrassed his army with nice questions of the rights, duties, and usages of civilized warfare. This was so clearly not a civilized, but an especially savage war, that his hesitation, and the misgivings upon which that hesitation was founded, are wholly inexplicable.
Claiborne was quick to use the small liberty given him to fight the Creeks, while the settlers, from their positions in the stockade forts, were already making frequent expeditions against vulnerable points.
Early in October, a body of twenty-five men, under Colonel William McGrew, went in pursuit of an Indian force, and attacked them resolutely on a little stream called Barshi Creek. The Indians were in considerable force, and despite the courage and determination of the whites the Creeks got the best of the affair, killing Colonel McGrew and three of his men, and putting the rest of the force to flight.
Much better success attended another expedition, which was undertaken about this time, and which resulted in one of the most remarkable incidents of the war, a sort of naval battle on a very small scale, but one that was contested as heroically as the battle of the Nile itself. This was Captain Sam Dale's celebrated canoe fight, of which a writer has said:
"There has seldom occurred in border warfare a more romantic incident… History has almost overlooked it, as too minute in its details for her stately philosophy. Yet for singularity of event, novelty of position, boldness of design, and effective personal fortitude and prowess, it is unsurpassed, if equalled, by any thing in backwoods chronicles, however replete these may be with the adventures of pioneers, the sufferings of settlers, and the achievements of that class who seem almost to have combined the life and manners of the freebooter with the better virtues of social man."
When Colonel McGrew's men returned after their unsuccessful conflict with the Creeks, the news they brought greatly incensed the people of Fort Madison, whose friends had fallen in that unlucky action. Believing that the main body of the Creeks was now south of the Alabama River, and fearing that they would destroy the buildings and the crops there, Captain Sam Dale, who had now nearly recovered from his severe wound received at the battle of Burnt Corn, organized an expedition for the purpose of clearing the lower country, if possible, of the hostile bands. The force which volunteered for this service consisted of seventy-two men. Thirty of them constituted Captain Richard Jones's company of Mississippi yauger men. The remainder were men of the neighborhood, who volunteered for the expedition.
Among these volunteers were three whose participation in the canoe fight makes it necessary to introduce them particularly to the reader. One of them was a negro, whose name, Cæsar, together with his good and gallant conduct on this occasion, are all that history has preserved with respect to him. Another was young Jeremiah Austill, the youth who carried despatches, as already related, between Colonel Carson and General Claiborne, when that service was most dangerous. The third was James Smith. We may best tell what is known of young Smith in the words of Mr. A. B. Meek, whose volume of sketches, from which we shall quote here, is unfortunately out of print. Mr. Meek writes thus:
"In Dale's command was a private soldier who already had a high reputation as an expert, daring and powerful Indian fighter. Born in Georgia in 1787, this scion of the universal Smith family was now a very stout, finely-proportioned man, five feet eight inches high, weighing one hundred and sixty pounds. Residing near Fort Madison, he took refuge there at the outbreak of the war. His fearless and adventurous character may be indicated by an incident. One day he determined to visit his farm, about eight miles distant, to see what injury the Indians had done. Proceeding cautiously, he came to a house in which he heard a noise, and, stealing up to the door, he found two Indians engaged in bundling up tools and other articles to carry them off. Levelling his gun at them he made them come out of the house and march before him toward the fort. In a thicket of woods the Indians suddenly separated, one on each hand, and ran. Smith fired at one of them and killed him, and, dropping his rifle, pursued the other, and, catching him, knocked him down with a light-wood3 knot and beat out his brains… This, and similar deeds of daring and prowess, gave to James Smith a high position among his frontier friends and neighbors."
Mr. Meek writes more fully of young Austill. He describes him as a youth nineteen years of age, dark, tall, sinewy, and full of youthful daring. The stories of his courageous performances were many, and during the war he won the special commendation of his superiors on many occasions for his bravery and his devotion to duty.
Dale marched from Fort Madison on the 11th of November, with Tandy Walker, a noted frontiersman, for his guide. Marching to the south-east, the column crossed the Alabama River at a point about thirty miles above Mims's ferry, and about twenty miles below the site of the present town of Claiborne.
Dale was thoroughly well acquainted with the habits of the Indians, among whom indeed he had lived frequently for long periods. He was therefore keenly alive to the necessity of unremitting vigilance, and, determined to suffer no surprise, he refused to permit any of his men to sleep during the night after his passage to the south-east bank of the river. During the next day he advanced up the river very cautiously, sending Austill, with six men, in two canoes which he had found, while the rest of the force marched through the woods on the bank.
At a place called Peggy Bailey's bluff the first signs of the presence of Indians were discovered. Following the trail well in advance of his men, Dale discovered ten Indians at breakfast. The first intimation these Indians had of the presence of white men on that side of the river came to them in the shape of a bullet from Dale's rifle, which killed one of the party, and caused the rest of them to abandon their provision pack, and flee precipitately through the woods.
Securing the abandoned provisions, Dale marched on a mile or two, but finding no further traces of Indians, he determined to recross the river and scour the country on the other side.
The work of crossing was necessarily slow. Only two canoes were to be had, and the river was nearly a fourth of a mile wide, but little by little the force was paddled across, until only about a dozen of the men remained with Dale on the eastern bank. These men were at breakfast when suddenly they were startled by a volley from the rifles of an Indian force. This force, as was afterward learned, was the advance party of about three hundred warriors. Dale and his handful of men protected themselves as well as they could among the trees, and returned the fire. Had the savages known the weakness of their force, they might easily have destroyed the little party by making a determined dash; but Dale and his men were so well concealed among the trees and in the bushes, that their enemies, in ignorance of their numbers, did not dare charge them. The nature of the ground served also to favor Dale. The river here had what is called a double bank – that is to say, there were two plateaus, one above the other, each breaking rather suddenly at its edge. These banks, covered with dense undergrowth, served the purpose of rude natural breastworks.
The first assault was made by about twenty-five or thirty of the savages, who were speedily joined by others, and Dale quickly saw that his position was an extremely critical one. The Indians must soon discover from the infrequency of the fire from the bank that the force there was small, and it was certain that they would make a charge as soon as this should be discovered – a charge which the dozen men there could not possibly withstand. Dale's first thought was of escape across the river to the main body of his little company; but this was clearly out of the question. There was but one canoe on his side of the river, so that to cross at all the little company on the bank must separate, half of it going over at one trip and half at another. If half of them should embark, the Indians, seeing the canoe in the river with its cargo of fugitives would know at once that the band on the bank was unable to resist them, and hence would destroy the men left behind before the canoe could return to bring them away.
Dale called to his men on the other side of the river to recross and render him assistance, but they seemed to be for the time fairly panic-stricken, so that none of them moved to answer the call. After a time their courage appeared to return, and eight of them manned a canoe and began the passage. When the man who led this detachment saw the great superiority of the Indian force, he became panic-stricken again and ordered a retreat, so that even this little attempt to reinforce Dale's tremendously overmatched company failed to bring relief.
Meantime a new danger appeared, coming this time upon the rear. A large canoe holding eleven Indian warriors shot out from the bank a little way up the river and paddled down to Dale's position. Here an attempt was made to land. Should this be accomplished, the fight must end at once in the destruction of the whole detachment on the river bank. To ward off this danger Dale was compelled to fight both ways – to the rear and to the front. He himself, with all of his men but three, kept up not a brisk, but a very destructive, fire in front, picking their men and shooting with all the precision of skilled marksmen; while Smith, Austill, and one other man devoted their attention to the warriors in the canoe, preventing them from approaching the shore.
Being kept thus at a distance, two of the most daring of the Indians in the canoe resolved to risk an attempt to swim ashore. Leaping overboard only their heads were exposed, of course; but Smith succeeded in sending a bullet into even that small target, killing one of the swimmers instantly. The other reached the bank, where he was met by Austill, who unluckily tripped and fell into the water, and before he could regain his footing the savage had escaped.
His escape brought matters to a head. Dale knew that this Indian had seen how small his force was, and that he would report its weakness, thereby making an immediate charge certain. He therefore resolved upon a desperate attempt. He called to his men, declaring his purpose to man the little canoe that remained with him, and attack the Indian canoe party. For this perilous service he asked who would volunteer. Smith, Austill, and the negro man Cæsar at once offered themselves; and with this little force Dale speedily put his plan into execution. Cæsar took the stern of the canoe as steersman, and the three white men grasped their paddles.
The Indians had fired all their ammunition away, else it would have gone hard with Dale when his own and his comrades' guns failed to fire as they did, because the powder in their pans had become wet. When this fact was discovered the two canoes were near each other, and Dale had no thought of flinching from the hand-to-hand conflict which must ensue between himself and his three companions on the one hand, and the nine remaining Indians on the other. He ordered Cæsar to bring the canoe alongside the enemy's boat, and to hold it firmly there. As this was done the Indians leaped to their feet, with their war-clubs and knives, ready for the combat. When the boats touched, Dale instantly leaped into that of his enemy, for the double purpose of crowding the enemy close together and giving his own companions abundant room in which to swing their clubbed guns. It was a mere question of brute strength between men determined to club each other to death. Austill was knocked down with a war-club once, but recovered himself. Dale advanced in the boat, knocking over one Indian after another with his rapid blows. A few minutes sufficed to bring the action to a close.
It is said that the last of the Indians was a young warrior with whom Dale had lived and hunted as a friend before the outbreak of the war. This young Indian and his former friend now confronted each other in the boat. Dale recognized the man with whom he had sat at the camp-fire and passed long days in the hunt; he hesitated, and was about to lower his raised weapon when the young savage, calling him by the name he had borne among the Indians, which meant "Big Sam," cried, "Sam Thlucco, you are a man, I am another – now for it!" He spoke in the Muscogee tongue, with which Dale was familiar, and as he spoke he attempted to grapple with Dale, but the active white man was too quick of movement for him. Stepping back suddenly, he brained his Indian antagonist with a single blow, and the canoe-fight was ended. The nine Indians were corpses, and Dale had not lost a single man, although Austill was severely wounded in the head.