The Creek War of 1813 and 1814

XX. Closing Events, 1814

274 THE CREEK WAR. hundred men and two hundred Cherokees and Oreeks, marching southward, was attacked by fire hundred Indians. "The fight lasted all day, both sides suffering severely; but the assailants were driven off." Jackson determined to return to Fort Strother. 7. Januar'y 24, 1814, having reached a Hillabee village, Enitachopco, "he was suddenly assailed with great vigor by the pursuing red men. After an obstinate combat they were repelled, though the invading army was at one time in great peril."* The Indians said, as their report of these engagements , "we whipped Oaptain Jackson and ran him to the Coosa River." He certainly fell back; and the Americans acknowledged that it was a severe engagement . 8. The Oalabee Valley Fight, Jan. 27, 1814. We return to the Georgia troops. Having his force increased to about seventeen hundred men and with his four hundred Indians, General Floyd moved into the Oalabee Valley and when about seven miles from the present Tuskegee, "the savages suddenly sprang from their lair in the undergrowth of the creek and made a furious assault about daylight ." "A charge soon drove them into the recesses of the swamp, with severe loss. But the cautious Floyd was effectually checked, and' his campaign brought to a premature close." Says Brewer, from IV hom these statements are taken, "The practical results of the fight were wholly with the brave [46) natives." *Brewer's "Alabama." WAR IN THE INDIAN OOUNTRY. 275 9. Tohopeka or the Battle of the Horse Shoe, Mara/, 27, 1814. This was the great decisive battle. The place was a noted bend in the Tallapoosa River, which from its shape took the name of Horse Shoe. Here a thousand warriors made their final stand. It was fortified in the Indian style. If the breastworks were taken it is supposed the warriors expected to cross the river and escape. When Jackson looked upon this chosen spot with its Muscogee defences, he is reported to have said, they have "penned themselves up for slaughter." A flag of truce sent by him was fired upon, whether through ignorance or design is not known. The Hillabee warriors might have been expected to fire upon it. The slaughter here, when the action began, was fearful. Not many of the thousand escaped. This battle may well be placed along side of that destruction that came upon the Pequods in New England. Of that, Martyn says, "it was not a battle-it was a massacre ." The well informed reader will note more than one point of similarity between the old Pequod war and the Creek war. Perhaps the one was as needful as the other. The one blotted out a small tribe; the other subdued a great people. And Brewer says, "And the combinen power of the whites, the Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Choctaws, assisted by a large portion of their own people, was required to subjugate them; and only then when the superior weapons of modern warfare had almost annihilated the fighting population." The following extracts from General Jackson's report are dated March 28, 1814. 276 THE CREEK WAR. "Battle Ground, bend of Tallapoosa." Referring to the warriors, "Expeoting our approach they had gathered in from Oakfuskie, Oakahoga, New Yoroau, Hillabees, The Fish Potm, and Eufaulu towns, to the number, it is said, of 1,000." "Determining to exterminate them I detaohed General Coffee * * * to oross the river," which was to out off retreat. After deboribing the aotion and the little effeot produoed for some time upon the Indian defenoes, having determined at last to take the plaoe" by storm," for whioh order the men were impatient, the report prooeeds: "The history of warfare, I think, furnishes few instanoes of a more brilliant attaok." ., The enemy were oompletely routed." "It is believed that not more than twenty have esoaped." Before leaving Tohopeka perhaps truth and justice require that another, a very unpleasant record should be made. It oonoerns the barbarity of some of Jaokson's troops. Jackson himself, although determining to exterminate the thousand warriors, made in this war, a good record for humanity in caring for the women and ohildren and in saving the life of a motherless Indian infant, when even the Indian mothers would give it no nourishment; but the same oannot be said of all of his men. Mr. Warren Wilbanks of Noxubee county, Mississippi, who died in 1882, ninety years of age, is authority for...