Within this stronghold was gathered the fighting force of the tribe, nearly a thousand warriors, and in the wigwams were about three hundred women and children. It was evident that they intended to make here their final, desperate stand.
The force led against them was two thousand strong. Their route of travel lay through the unbroken forest wilds, and it took eleven days to reach the Indian fort. A glance at it showed Jackson the weakness of the savage engineering. As he said, they had "penned themselves in for destruction."
The work began by sending Colonel Coffee across the river, with orders to post his men opposite the line of canoes and prevent the Indians from escaping. Coffee did more than this; he sent swimmers over who cut loose the canoes and brought them across the stream. With their aid he sent troops over the bend to attack the savages in the rear while Jackson assailed them in front.
The battle began with a fierce assault, but soon settled down to a slow slaughter, which lasted for five or six hours,—the fierce warriors, as in the former battles, refusing to ask for quarter or to accept their lives. Their prophets had told them that if they did they would be put to death by torture. When the battle ended few of them were left alive. On the side of the whites only fifty-five were killed and about three times as many wounded.
This signal defeat ended forever the power of the Cree nation, once the leading Indian power of the Gulf region. Such of the chiefs as survived surrendered. Among them was Weathersford, their valiant half-breed leader. Mounted on his well-known gray horse, famed for its speed and endurance, he rode to the door of Jackson's tent. The old soldier looked up to see before him this famous warrior, tall, erect, majestic, and dignified.
"I am Weathersford," he said; "late your enemy, now your captive."
From without the tent came fierce cries of "Kill him! kill him!"
"You may kill me if you wish," said the proud chief; "but I came to tell you that our women and children are starving in the woods. They never did you any harm and I came to beg you to send them food."
Jackson looked sternly at the angry throng outside, and said, in his vigorous way, "Any man who would kill as brave a man as this would rob the dead."