The road to glory

by E. Alexander Powell

Nothing more graphically illustrates the savagery and determination with which the American frontiersmen prosecuted their campaign against the Indians than the story of Sam Dale’s canoe fight. Dale, who was a veritable Hercules of a man, while scouting with some companions in advance of Jackson’s army, saw floating down the Alabama a war canoe containing eleven Creeks. Ambushing themselves amid the bushes on the bank, the Americans poured in a volley as the canoe swept by and five of the Indians fell dead. Then Dale pushed off in a small boat with three men to finish up the business. Ordering one of his companions to hold the boats together, the big frontiersman went at the Indians with his bayonet like a field-hand with his pitchfork loading hay. Throwing caution to the winds in his lust of battle, he advanced upon the Indians single-handed, and before he had time to realize his peril and retreat the current had swept the canoes apart, leaving him in the larger one confronting the six remaining Creeks. Two of them were shot by his companions in the other boat, three more he accounted for himself, the only one left alive being a famous Indian wrestler named Tar-cha-cha.

“Big Sam!” the Indian shouted, “I am a man!... I am coming!... Come on!” Clubbing his rifle, he rushed forward, dealing Dale a blow which broke his shoulder and nearly sent him into the river, but before he could get in another the frontiersman drove his bayonet home and ended the fight.

The early months of 1814 were a time of the most intense anxiety to Jackson, for, the terms of enlistment of his volunteers expiring, they insisted on returning to their homes, until at one brief period he found himself in the heart of the Indian country with less than a hundred men. Physical suffering as well as anxiety marked this period of the campaign—privation, exhaustion, irritation, and the drain of a slowly healing wound producing serious effects on a system which was habitually on the verge of collapse. It was, indeed, only his cast-iron will that sustained him, for during one period of anxiety he slept but three hours in four nights. But with the coming of spring the feet of the young men became restless for the forest trails again, and by the middle of March, his ranks filled once more, he was ready to deliver his final blow. The Creeks had by this time abandoned their campaign of aggression and, falling back to their stronghold of Tohopeka, on the Tallapoosa, known to the whites as the Horseshoe Bend, they prepared to make their last stand.

On the morning of March 27, 1814, Jackson’s skirmishers came within sight of the Indian encampment. On a peninsula formed by a horseshoe-like bend of the river, a thousand warriors with three hundred of their women and children were encamped. They comprised the very flower of the Creek nation, or rather, all that was left of it. The neck of the peninsula was only four hundred yards wide, and across it the Creeks, profiting by the lessons they had received from their Spanish and British allies, had built a zigzag wall of logs, eight feet high and pierced by a double row of loopholes. The angles formed by the zigzags enabled the defenders to sweep with a deadly cross-fire the ground over which an attacking column must advance, while trees had been felled at intervals in such fashion that their interlaced branches provided admirable cover for sharpshooters. All in all, it was a tough nut that Jackson found himself called upon to crack. But cracking that particular kind of nuts was a specialty of Jackson’s. His artillery consisted of two small brass field-pieces, not much larger than those employed on yachts for saluting purposes. Sending Colonel Coffee across the river with his cavalry to cut off the escape of the Indians in that direction, Jackson planted his miniature field-guns on a little hill only eighty yards from the Creek fortifications. Either the guns must have been very weak or the fortifications very strong, for after a two-hours’ bombardment no appreciable damage had been done. Then Jackson, who was always for getting to hand-grips with an enemy, told his men to go in and do the job with the bayonet. Whereupon the Tennesseeans, who had been as fidgety and impatient as hounds in leash, swept forward with a whoop. As regardless of the withering fire poured into them as if it had been hailstones instead of bullets, they hacked their way through the abatis of branches and clambered over the wall, shooting, bayonetting, clubbing with a ferocity which matched that of the Indians. And, imitating the customs of the savages they had been fighting for so long, many of the frontiersmen paused to scalp the Indians that they killed. For the Creeks it was a hopeless struggle from the first, but they were not of a breed that, finding themselves beaten, whined for mercy. Retreating to such protection as the place afforded, they fought and kept on fighting even after a flag of truce had been sent them with an offer to accept their surrender. By three o’clock the battle of the Horseshoe Bend had become a part of the history of the frontier. So completely had Jackson done his work that only twenty Indians escaped. Eight hundred copper-colored corpses lay upon the blood-soaked ground beside the Tallapoosa; the rest were prisoners. It is a significant fact that there were no wounded among the Indians. The Americans had nearly two hundred killed and wounded, among the latter being Jackson himself and a youngster named Sam Houston, who, in after years, was to win fame fighting a no less savage foe on the banks of the Rio Grande.

The battle of the Horseshoe Bend broke the Creek power of resistance for good and all. Since the commencement of hostilities they had lost in battle nearly three-fourths of all their fighting men. The rest, not much more than a thousand in all, fled to their cousins, the Seminoles, in Florida, where they promptly began hatching plans for vengeance. On the 1st of August, Jackson sent word to such of the chieftains as had not fled into Spanish territory to meet him on the Hickory Ground. Here he received their submission and here he imposed on them his terms of peace. His demands were so rigorous as to bring a gasp of astonishment even from the Americans, for he insisted on the cession of an L-shaped tract of land which included more than half the territory of the Creeks, thus forming a barrier between them and the Choctaws and Chickasaws on the west and the Spaniards in Florida.

Jackson now turned his face toward Nashville. He had ridden out of there an unpopular and almost unknown officer of militia. He returned to find himself a military hero, the stories of whose exploits were retailed in every settler’s cabin from one end of the frontier to the other. In recognition of his services, the President commissioned him a major-general in the regular army and gave him command of the Department of the South, with headquarters at Mobile. Our second war with England had now been dragging its tedious course along for nearly two years, marked by British successes on land and American victories on the sea. The air was filled with rumors of a great British armada which was on its way to attack New Orleans, and these solidified into fact when word reached Jackson that a portion of the British fleet had anchored in the harbor of Pensacola and proposed, in defiance of Spanish neutrality, to use that port as a base of operations against the United States. Pensacola was in Florida, and Florida was still owned by Spain, and Spain was professedly a neutral; but if the British could violate that neutrality, argued Jackson, why, so could the Americans. Without waiting for authority from Washington (and it was well that he did not, for the city had been burned by the British and the government had fled), Jackson crossed the Mobile River and invaded Spanish territory at the head of three thousand veterans. On November 6 he was at the walls of Pensacola. A messenger was sent to the Spanish governor under a flag of truce with a peremptory demand from Jackson that the fortress be turned over to the United States until such time as the Spanish were strong enough to maintain the neutrality of the port. The governor, emboldened by the fact that seven British war-ships were lying in the harbor, showed his defiance by firing upon the flag of truce. But he didn’t know the type of man that he was defying. Jackson was no more awed by the might of England or the majesty of Spain or the sacredness of neutral territory than he had been by the Indians’ “holy ground.” Instantly he ordered forward his storming parties. So sudden was his attack that the British ships had no time to up anchor and bring their guns to bear for the protection of the town. The Spanish soldiery fought well, however, and a sharp battle ensued in the streets, the batteries opening on the advancing Americans with solid shot and grape while a heavy fire of musketry was poured into them from houses and gardens. But the Spaniards were driven back everywhere by the fierceness of the American assault, whereupon the governor, seeing that further resistance was useless, sent a messenger to the American commander to inquire what terms he would grant him. “Nothing but unconditional surrender,” answered Jackson, and the haughty Spaniard had no alternative but to accept his terms. Slowly the flag of Spain, which had flaunted defiantly above the fort, sank down the staff and in its stead rose a flag of stripes and stars. The machinery of conquest, with Andrew Jackson at the crank, had pared off another slice of Florida.

Jackson’s capture of the fortifications having made the harbor untenable, the British blew up the Spanish forts at the Barrancas, which commanded the harbor entrance, and departed, whereupon Jackson evacuated the town. His work in Pensacola was finished. Eight weeks later (January 8, 1815) he won his immortal victory at New Orleans, with his untrained frontiersmen and scanty resources meeting and annihilating the British regiments that had conquered Napoleon. At a single bound he leaped from the status of a backwoods soldier to one of the great leaders of his time.

But the victory at New Orleans and the treaty of peace with England did not mean the end of fighting for Jackson. There were still several odd jobs to be done. During the war a British colonel named Nicholls had been sent on a secret mission to Florida in an attempt to incite the Seminoles, the fugitive Creeks, and the runaway negroes who infested the northern part of the province to harass the borders of the United States. While in Florida he built a fort on the Appalachicola River, not far above its mouth and well within Spanish territory, and collected there a large store of arms and ammunition. When the war ended and Colonel Nicholls was recalled, he turned the fort over to the Seminoles in the hope that it would prove a thorn in the side of the United States. From the Seminoles the place passed into the hands of the negro refugees and quickly became a source of anxiety to the American military authorities on our southern border. But, though it was garrisoned by escaped slaves and was a constant menace to the peace of the frontier, the Americans were powerless—according to international law, at least—because it was built on Spanish soil. But when the matter was referred to Jackson he showed how much he cared for international law by writing to General Gaines that the “Negro Fort,” as it was called, “ought to be blown up, regardless of the ground on which it stands.” That was all the hint that Gaines needed, and in July, 1816, he ordered an expedition under Colonel Duncan Clinch to ascend the river and destroy the fort. As the flotilla approached, a boat’s crew which had been sent forward to reconnoitre was fired upon, whereupon the gunboats were warped up-stream until they were within range. The bombardment was of short duration, for scarcely had the gunboats opened fire before a red-hot shot struck the magazine of the fort, where eight hundred barrels of gunpowder were stored. In the explosion that followed, the fort vanished from the earth, and for some moments it fairly rained negroes—or parts of them. Of the three hundred and thirty-four inmates of the fort, two hundred and seventy were blown to kingdom come, and of the sixty-four left alive, all but three were so terribly injured that they died—which was just as well, perhaps, in view of what happened to two out of the three survivors. These, an Indian chief and Garçon, the negro commander, were handed over to some friendly Seminoles to be put to death in the ingenious Indian fashion in retaliation for the death by torture of one of the American sailors, who had been taken prisoner a few days before. From all accounts, the Seminoles performed their task well but slowly.

The destruction of the Negro Fort, though unimportant in itself, served to stir up the uneasiness and discontent which prevailed along the Florida border and which was shared in by Creeks, Seminoles, Spaniards, and Americans. By March, 1817, several thousand whites had settled on the rich lands that Jackson had taken from the Creeks, and the friction which quickly developed between the new owners and the old ones, now fugitives in Florida, resulted in a series of defiances and depredations. While relations with the Indians were thus strained almost to the breaking point there again sprang up the historic irritation against Spain, whom the American settlers accused, rightly or wrongly, of inciting the Indians against them. Meanwhile President Monroe was negotiating for the purchase of Florida, for he fully realized that there could be no permanent peace along the border as long as that province remained in Spanish hands. Doubtful of his success, however, he took care to see that an army under Jackson was stationed within striking distance, for there is no doubt that the government, now that the war with England was over, was determined to take Florida by force if it could not be obtained by purchase. Nor could anything give Jackson keener satisfaction than the prospect of once more getting his hands on the rich prize which he had joyfully held for a brief moment in 1814. Indeed, he frankly expressed his attitude when he wrote to President Monroe: “Let it be signified to me, through any channel, that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished.” In other words, if the government wished to seize the province but lacked the courage to take the responsibility, Jackson was ready to do the job himself.

But suddenly a new element was injected into the already complicated situation. The series of revolts against Spanish rule in South America had attracted thither European adventurers, freelances, and soldiers of fortune of many nationalities, and these, when the revolutionary business grew dull in other places, turned their eyes toward Florida. It had a fertile soil, marvellous vegetation, a healthful climate, a notoriously weak government, and, everything considered, seemed to have been made to order for the filibusters. The first to make the attempt to “free” Florida was a Scottish nobleman, Sir Gregor MacGregor. No more picturesque character ever swaggered across the pages of our history. He was a prototype of Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King.” Resigning his commission in the British army, he went to Caracas in 1811 and offered his services to the Venezuelans in their struggle for independence. He became adjutant-general to Miranda and, upon the capture of that ill-fated leader, repeatedly distinguished himself in the renewed struggle under Bolivar. He led a handful of Venezuelans from Ocumare to Barcelona in one of the most brilliant and skilfully conducted retreats in history and, upon Venezuela achieving her independence, was publicly thanked for his services by President Bolivar, commissioned a general of division, and decorated with the Order of Libertadores. But an ineradicable love of adventure ran in his veins; so, when peace settled for a time on war-torn Venezuela MacGregor looked elsewhere for excitement. Florida was still under the obnoxious rule of Spain, and Florida, he decided, needed to be freed. Early in 1817, therefore, he fitted out an expedition in Baltimore and descended upon Fernandina, which, as I have previously remarked, is built on the twenty-two-mile-long Amelia Island, off Florida’s upper right-hand corner. MacGregor declared that as soon as he achieved the independence of the province he intended to hand it over to the United States, which was certainly thoughtful and considerate, seeing how much the United States wanted it; but nobody seems to have believed him. His intentions were of small consequence, however, for a few months after he had seized the island and raised the green-cross flag, along came another adventurer, an Englishman named Hubbard, and drove him off. Disappointed in his Floridan ambitions, MacGregor re-entered the service of Venezuela, and in 1819, organizing an expedition in Jamaica, he eluded the vigilance of the British authorities and made a most daring descent upon Puerto Bello, which he captured after a desperate assault, though subsequently he was surprised by an overwhelming force of Spaniards and was forced to flee. In 1821 he quitted the service of Venezuela—then become a part of the Colombian Republic—and settled among the Poyais Indians, a warlike tribe on the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua, where he obtained a grant of a tract of fertile land and, making himself ruler of the region, assumed the title of “his Highness the MacGregor, Cacique of Poyais.” He organized a government, established an army, encouraged commerce and agriculture, built roads and schools, cultivated plantations, and for nearly twenty years ruled in middle America as an independent and enlightened sovereign. But misfortune finally overtook him; Great Britain declared a protectorate over his little kingdom, which was not abrogated until 1905, and its late ruler retired to Caracas, where the Venezuelan Government granted him a pension and restored him to his rank of general of division, and where he died, generally respected, in the early forties.