CHAPTER XXII.
HOW JACKSON LOST HIS ARMY.
We now return to General Jackson's camp at Fort Strother, near the Ten Islands. The situation there was bad from the time of the Talladega expedition, and it grew steadily worse. The army was nearly starved, and Jackson was sharing their hunger with them. When a few lean kine were secured, seeing that the supply was sufficient only to give to each man a very scant portion, Jackson declined to take any part of the beef for his own table, and took some of the entrails instead, saying with cheerfulness that he had always heard that tripe was nutritious and savory food. He lost no opportunity to secure such provisions as could be had from the surrounding country, but these were barely sufficient to keep famine at bay from day to day, and Jackson busied himself with the writing of letters to everybody who could in any way contribute to hasten forward adequate supplies. He wrote to one contractor, saying:
"I have been compelled to return here for the want of supplies when I could have completed the destruction of the enemy in ten days; and on my arrival I find those I had left behind in the same starving condition with those who accompanied me. For God's sake send me with all despatch plentiful supplies of bread and meat. We have been starving for several days, and it will not do to continue so much longer. Hire wagons and purchase supplies at any price rather than defeat the expedition. General White, instead of forming a junction with me, as he assured me he would, has taken the retrograde motion, after having amused himself with consuming provisions for three weeks in the Cherokee Nation, and left me to rely on my own strength."[5]
Nothing that the perplexed commander could do or say or write, however, could help him. Day by day food became scarcer, poorer, and more difficult to get, and the men were becoming mutinous, as volunteers are sure to do when left to starve in inaction. If the enemy had appeared in his immediate neighborhood, Jackson would certainly have cured all the disorders of the camp and removed its discontent by giving the men constant occupation for their minds in conflicts with the foe. As it was, there was neither food nor fighting to be had at Fort Strother, and General Jackson did not dare to attempt a march upon the nearest Indian stronghold, about sixty miles away, without supplies.
Not many days had passed after the return to the Ten Islands when information reached Jackson that the men of the militia regiment intended to return to their homes with or without permission, and that they had appointed the next day as the time of starting. Luckily he believed that he could still depend upon the volunteers. He knew, too, that in this matter he had to deal with bodies of men, not with individuals. The power of public sentiment, which in this case was corps sentiment, was the power arrayed against him. He knew that the men would not desert singly, that their pride would restrain them from desertion unless they could act together, each being sustained by the opinion and the common action of all his fellows. The militia had determined to march home in a body; Jackson determined to restrain them in a body.
On the appointed day he called the volunteers to arms, and at their head placed himself in the way of the mutinous militiamen. He plainly informed the men that they could march homeward only by cutting their way through his lines, and this was an undertaking which they were not prepared for. Being unable to overcome Jackson, they had no choice but to yield to him and return to their tents, which they did at once, with what cheerfulness they could command.
The volunteers whose power Jackson was thus able to use in arresting the departure of the militia were scarcely less discontented than they. On the very day on which they stopped the march of the militia they resolved themselves to go home, and prepared to depart on the following morning. Jackson had information of what was going on, and he prepared to reverse the order of things by using the militia in their turn to oppose the volunteers. The militia having returned to their duty obeyed the commands of their general, and opposed a firm front to the mutinous volunteers. The affair wore so much of the appearance of a practical joke that it put the whole force into momentary good-humor.
With his men in this mood, however, Jackson knew that he had merely gained a very brief time by his firmness, and that the discontent of which the mutiny was born existed still in undiminished force. He therefore sent the cavalry to Huntsville to recruit their horses, first exacting a promise that they would return as soon as that end could be accomplished—a promise which the men afterward violated shamelessly. He then called all the officers of the army together, and, after giving them all the facts in his possession upon which he founded the confident hope that provisions in plenty would soon arrive, he made a speech to them, trying to win them back to something of their old devotion to duty. He had good reason to believe that supplies both of meat and of breadstuffs were now actually on their way to him, and his chief present purpose was to gain time, to persuade his followers to patience and obedience for the two or three days which he thought would end the period of short rations. According to Eaton's report of the speech, Jackson said to his officers: