CHAPTER XIII. PEACE NEGOTIATIONS.—CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CREEKS.
Condition of Affairs at the Opening of the Third Year—Congressional Appropriations—Russian Offers of Mediation—Jackson's Preparations—Battles of Emucfau, Enotachopco, and Horseshoe Bend.
At the beginning of the third year of the war the prospects of the Americans were more discouraging than at any previous period. The European wars had come to an end for the time, Napoleon having been overthrown at Leipsic, and Great Britain, with an immense navy and an abundance of veteran troops, was at liberty to turn her entire attention upon the enemy across the Atlantic. Indeed, her fleet on our coast had been gradually increasing for several months, and Admirals Warren and Cockburn had shown a determination not to confine their operations to combats of vessel with vessel, but wherever practicable to send a force ashore to harass the people, burn their homes, and carry off their movable property. Harrison's victory was almost the only achievement of the American land forces worth mentioning. The little navy was as gallant as ever, and had suffered no defeat in anything like an equal fight, except in the case of the Chesapeake; but now it seemed likely to be overwhelmed by a power that could send against it a thousand war-ships. Two powerful ones had already been sent for the special purpose of capturing one of our cruisers, the Essex, with orders to follow her wherever she went, and take her at all hazards. The operations of the privateers had struck the English nation in its most tender spot, the pocket, and roused it to a furious determination for vengeance; while the London journals were boldly talking of schemes for using the opportunity to cut off various slices of our territory.
Though the Federal party had declined in popular strength, its leaders in Congress opposed the war as bitterly as ever; but after considerable debate an act was passed to increase the regular army to sixty thousand men, enlisted for five years. A bounty of a hundred and twenty-four dollars was voted for recruits, and eight dollars to each man who brought in one. Seven hundred men were added to the Marine Corps, half a million dollars appropriated for a floating battery, and a hundred dollars offered for every prisoner brought home by a privateer. There was a surplus of a million dollars in the treasury, and five millions were yet to be paid in from loans, while the revenue for the ensuing year was estimated at ten millions. The expenditures were estimated at forty-five millions, and Congress authorized a new loan of twenty-five millions, and a reissue of ten millions in treasury notes.
The Russian Government offered its friendly offices as a mediator for peace, three times in the course of the war; but each time the offer was rejected by England. Once—in March, 1813—the offer was formally accepted on the part of the United States, and Albert Gallatin and James A. Bayard, who believed the English Government would accept it as readily, sailed for St. Petersburg, to join John Quincy Adams, American Minister at the Russian Court, in negotiating the peace. The London Courier probably spoke the sentiments of a large part of the British public when it said:
"We hope the Russian mediation will be refused. Indeed, we are sure it will. We have a love for our naval preeminence that cannot bear to have it even touched by a foreign hand. Russia can be hardly supposed to be adverse to the principle of armed neutrality, and that idea alone would be sufficient to make us decline the offer. We must take our stand, never to commit our naval rights to the mediation of any power. This is the flag we must nail to the national mast, and go down rather than strike it. The hour of concession and compromise is past. Peace must be the consequence of punishment to America; and retraction of her insolent demands must precede negotiation. The thunder of our cannon must first strike terror into the American shores, and Great Britain must be seen and felt in all the majesty of her might, from Boston to Savannah, from the lakes of Canada to the mouths of the Mississippi."
The English Government declined the offer of mediation, as before, but expressed a willingness to nominate plenipotentiaries to make direct negotiations with the American commissioners, suggesting that the conference be held in London, unless the Americans preferred Gottenburg, Sweden. This answer was made in September, 1813, and reached the United States Government in official form in November. The President communicated it to Congress early in January, 1814, and the proposition was accepted; Gottenburg being chosen as the place, and Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell being added to Messrs. Adams, Bayard, and Gallatin as commissioners. Their instructions were, to insist on an absolute discontinuance of the practice of search and impressment, and to offer, in consideration of this, an agreement to exclude British seamen from American vessels, and to surrender deserters.
But the best way to secure an honorable peace-and indeed it will be the only way, until the millennium—is by exhibiting an ability to prosecute successful war. With the new appropriations, the Administration, while sending its peace commissioners abroad, prepared for more vigorous war within our own borders.
After a great deal of trouble with troops who believed their terms of service had expired, and who finally marched home in spite of all arguments and protests, Jackson, who had been made a major-general, found himself at Fort Strother in January, 1814, with nine hundred raw recruits and a few dozen men who had participated in his autumn campaign. With these and two hundred Indians he set out on a raid into the country of the Creeks.
On the 22d, near Emucfau, on Tallapoosa River, he was attacked by a large force, who made a feint on his right and then fell heavily upon his left. The General had anticipated this plan, and strengthened his left, so that after a stubborn fight the enemy were routed and pursued for three miles.
Two days later, on the return march, the troops were in the act of crossing Enotachopco Creek, when the Indians attacked again. After a few shots, the rear guard retreated in disorder, leaving not more than a hundred men to face the enemy; but these, by determined bravery, and especially by skilful use of a six-pounder with grape-shot, defeated the savages, and pursued them for two miles. Jackson himself acted as gunner. He lost in this raid about a hundred men.
In February, Jackson had a new army of five thousand men, including a regiment of United States regulars, in which Sam Houston was an ensign. The only difficulty now was with supplies; but this was enormous. The distance from Fort Deposit to Fort Strother was only forty miles, but the roads were so bad that a wagon-train required seven days to accomplish it, though there was a horse to every barrel of flour in the load. Nearly sixty miles southeast of Fort Strother, and the same distance northeast of Montgomery, is Horseshoe Bend in the Tallapoosa, enclosing a peninsula of one hundred acres, which is less than five hundred feet wide at the neck. Here the Creek warriors, to the number of a thousand, had encamped and fortified themselves, when Jackson, with nearly three thousand men, was marching against them, for the avowed purpose of extermination. The Americans reached the place on the morning of March 27th, and Jackson sent General Coffee with the mounted men and Indians to cross the stream two miles be low, countermarch, and take position on the bank in rear of the village. When he received the signal of their arrival, he moved forward with his main force, and planted two field-pieces to play upon the breastwork of logs and earth which crossed the neck of the peninsula. But a two hours' cannonade produced no effect upon it. Coffee and his Indians now crossed the river, set fire to the village, and attacked the enemy in the rear. As Jackson saw by the rising smoke what had been done, he stormed the breastwork in front, and for a little while there was desperate hand-to-hand fighting through the loop-holes. Then the troops, following the example of Major L. P. Montgomery and Ensign Houston, mounted the works, leapt down among the enemy, and plied the bayonet right and left till the Indians broke and fled. They neither asked for quarter nor received it. Whether they hid themselves in the thickets or attempted to swim the stream, they were hotly pursued, hunted out, and mercilessly shot. A portion found shelter under the bank, where felled timber and a rude breastwork protected them. Jackson summoned them to surrender, promising to spare their lives; but they shot his messenger. After he had failed to dislodge them either by an artillery fire or a storming party, his troops set fire to the timber, and shot the Indians as they were driven out by the flames. At the close of that day, five hundred and fifty-seven of the Creeks lay dead on the peninsula. It is believed that not more than two hundred escaped. One chief, Manowa, saved himself after he had been badly wounded, by plunging into the water, holding himself under by grasping a root, and breathing through a reed that reached from his mouth to the surface. After nightfall he rose, swam the stream, and stole away.
Jackson lost one hundred and thirty-one white soldiers and fifty-four Cherokees. Major Montgomery was killed, and Ensign Houston was wounded.
The savagery of this warfare is explained by the fact that the Creeks were not fighting for any cause of their own, real or pretended, but only as mercenaries of the English. In a letter written at this time, Jackson said: "While we fight the savage, who makes war only because he delights in blood, and who has gotten his booty when he has scalped his victim, we are, through him, contending against an enemy of more inveterate character and deeper design. So far as my exertions can contribute, the purposes, both of the savage and his instigator, shall be defeated."
By these battles, the power of the Creeks was completely broken. Jackson compelled the remnant of the tribe to move north, and that summer they were fed by the Government.