In January, 1814, Jackson’s little army pushed on to the Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River, and camped in a hollow square, with every prospect of being attacked by hostiles, who were in great numbers in the vicinity. Two hours before dawn, the pickets were heard firing. Throwing brush on the camp-fires, the volunteers waited for the attack, expecting to see the Indians by the glare of the flames; but the Creeks kept out of sight, and were themselves aided in aiming by the light in the camp. Four whites were killed and a number wounded, and although several charges were made, Jackson found it necessary to retreat. The dead were burned, to prevent their being scalped, and the force fell back to the Enotachopco Creek. Some historians have called this affair a victory!
When the army was about to cross the creek, the savages fell on the rear guard, which Colonel Carroll was commanding. On the right flank Colonel Perkins was in charge, and on the left Colonel Stump. Carroll did his duty bravely, but the other Colonels fled and their men followed them. As Stump rode frantically past Jackson, the General tried to cut down the coward with his sword, but missed him. Colonel Carroll was thus left with only twenty-five men, and was in danger of being cut to pieces by the yelling and triumphant warriors.
Then the scouts under Russell, with the aid of the artillerymen, who had only one six-pound cannon, sprang to the aid of the rear guard, and [Davy had a chance to fight that must have satisfied him]. While the artillerymen were dragging the piece up the bank of the creek and loading it with grape, Davy’s company, led by old Major Russell, rushed across the stream and attacked the left flank of the Indians, who outnumbered the whites ten to one. Constantine Perkins and Craven Jackson, of the cannoneers, at last swept the ranks of the savages, huddled in the narrow descent to the creek, with a hail of grape. Then the scouts fell on the demoralized enemy, who took to the woods, and Jackson’s army was saved. One hundred and eighty-nine dead Indians were counted after this fight, and twenty volunteers were killed and seventy-five wounded.
It is worth while to consider the iron tenacity of Old Hickory, in the face of such disastrous losses. Practically without an army, and with no supplies for the friendly Creeks, he renewed his appeals to the people of Tennessee and Kentucky, and hopefully awaited their response. Every day of delay made the danger greater, for the Creeks were constantly securing firearms and powder and lead from the British agents at Pensacola.
The spectacle of the English unloading guns and scalping-knives for the savages at a Spanish port has always been miserable to look upon. But in 1865, after the surrender of Lee had ended the Civil War, twenty-five cases of Colt’s Navy revolvers, received via London, were taken from the warehouse of the Confederate Agent at St. George’s in the Bermuda Islands, sold to an American, and sent to New York on the bark Palo Alto. The Southern army had Hartford revolvers, via England and the blockade, with which to fight the brothers of the men who made them. Until the United States Government prohibited the shipping of beef to Nassau, Bermuda, and Havana, there was a supply sent to the Confederates through the blockade, as best it could be, by New York dealers. There is no use in the pot calling the kettle black.
As the volunteers returned to their homes, they stirred the hearts of their neighbors with the story of Jackson’s bravery and self-sacrifice, and the indifference of the people turned to enthusiasm. Before the end of February, Coffee returned to Alabama with two hundred of his old brigade, and there soon followed him two thousand men from Western Tennessee, and two thousand more from the mountains of Eastern Tennessee. Every man was a rifleman. The Choctaws also offered the stubborn General all the warriors of their tribe to fight the Creeks.
After serving about four months instead of the two for which he at first volunteered, Davy Crockett returned to his home, and for some time he was busy in providing for the comfort of his family. After the battle of Tohopeka, in March, 1814, in which Jackson completely routed the hostile Creeks, the victorious General made plans for an attack on Pensacola, which port the British fleet was using as if it were under the “gridiron” flag. Davy has said of this time: “I determined to go again with them [to Pensacola] as I wanted a small taste of British fighting, and I supposed they would be there.” It was in vain that Polly Crockett begged him to change his mind. Under the command of Major Russell, he crossed the Tennessee at Mussel Shoals, and at the junction of the Alabama and the Tombigbee Rivers, was two days behind the main army of General Jackson. Here they found the horses of the army, and left their own, as forage was not to be had nearer to Pensacola. With their guns, blankets, and provisions, they made the march of nearly eighty miles in two days, and came in sight of the town and of the British fleet, which lay off the port.
It was now November of the year 1814, and as Jackson had made terms with the Indians, and had occupied Pensacola, he marched his army to New Orleans, where the British were defeated in the following January. As Crockett was now at liberty to go home, he did so, but he was a long time getting there.
A careless reading of his story of this period of his adventurous life is utterly confusing, but with a better understanding of his meaning, the account is a logical one. Davy called things as he was accustomed to hear them called, and when he speaks of the Scamby River, meaning the Escambia, or calls the Conecuh, the Conaker, he gives the best proof that in his relation he was not indebted to the imagination of an educated and inventive editor. In Eggleston’s intensely interesting history of the Creek War, the author tells us that after his treaty with the Creek nation, August 14, 1814, General Jackson went back to The Hermitage, because his work was done, and that for a year Red Eagle, the vanquished chief, was his guest. But from Hickory Grove, the place of the treaty, Jackson must have gone to Pensacola, which he occupied November 7, 1814; and as he fought the battle of New Orleans in January, 1815, it is a cause for wonder that any historian should make a statement so far from facts known to the ordinary schoolboy.