If these men had had a single spark of soldierly spirit left in them—if the manhood itself had not all gone out of them—such an appeal as this would have shamed them into their duty. It is incredible that men who had once had spirit enough to volunteer in the service of their country should have lost it so utterly that they could resist this plea to their pride, their duty, and their regard for their own good name; but such was the fact. Out of the whole brigade, officers and men, only one was found with manliness enough to stay. That one man was a Captain Wilkinson, the mention of whose name is only a just tribute to his soldierly manhood. The rest were no longer men in spirit, but homesick wretches, lusting for the flesh-pots of Tennessee, the ease, the indolence, the comfort of home.
Public opinion is particularly strong in a new country, where every man's history is known to all his neighbors, and few men in such a case can successfully brave it. Public opinion in Tennessee sharply condemned these volunteers for their abandonment of the service upon a mere technicality, at a time when the enemy was in their front. How sorely they smarted under the taunts of their neighbors we may easily imagine; and when they could silently endure the censure no longer, they prepared a plea in their own justification, which was published in March of the following year. This plea was offered in the form of a statement, signed by the brigadier-general who commanded the disaffected brigade, one colonel, two lieutenant-colonels, two majors, an aide-de-camp, and the brigade-quartermaster. These officers in their statement recount the history of their service, and rest their case upon the dates used in their muster-rolls, and the technicality that in dismissing them after their Natchez expedition Jackson had used the word "discharge" instead of "dismiss." They assert that they and their men were fully and finally discharged at the end of that expedition, and explain their readiness to answer the call to march against the Creeks, when Jackson assembled them a second time, by a confession that they thought they saw a chance to secure pay for service not rendered. They declare that they returned to the service, believing that their term could only last till the 10th of December in any case, and that by doing so they could compel the government to give them soldiers' pay for all the time which they had passed at home.
Read carelessly, their plea seems to palliate their misconduct; read at all carefully, it adds to their shame.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HOW JACKSON LOST THE REST OF HIS ARMY.
Having begun the work of getting rid of men upon whom he could not depend for active service, Jackson was disposed to complete it as speedily as possible, in order that he might resume the active operations of the campaign, knowing precisely what he could count upon in the way of an army and governing his measures accordingly.
He had counted upon General Cocke's force for at least half his strength, but here again he was doomed to disappointment. General Cocke came, it is true, according to the appointment, and brought an army of two thousand men with him; but they were three-months' men, and they had already served more than two months! General Cocke has declared in a printed letter that he had asked these men to give up the thought of going home at the expiration of their term of service, and voluntarily remain until the end of the campaign, and that the men had promised him to do so. He expressed in that letter surprise, not unmixed with indignation, that Jackson did not take them at their word; but when we remember what Jackson had just gone through, and reflect that these men would have ceased to be soldiers and become citizens when their time should expire; that their promise to remain till the end of the campaign would have had no binding force whatever; that they would have had the fullest right, individually or in bodies, to abandon the army at any moment, however critical the situation might be; and that Jackson would have had absolutely no authority over them, even to command obedience to orders in camp or battle, we cannot wonder that he declined to begin a campaign in the wilderness against a savage and wily foe, with an army which might dissolve at any moment and go home, and which, even while it should remain with him, would be free to disobey orders at its own sweet will. Campaigns are not successfully carried on, battles are not won, with mobs. Jackson meant to have an army before setting out again to crush the Creeks, and accordingly he sent Cocke's men home, retaining only Colonel Lillard's regiment as a temporary garrison for the fort.
He then ordered General Cocke to return to East Tennessee and enlist a new force, and urged the returning men to volunteer again as soon as they should have provided themselves at home with suitable clothing for a winter campaign.
It was his hope that two thousand men or more would be secured in East Tennessee and a like number in West Tennessee, and with such a force he could march into the Creek Nation and crush the savages, he believed, within a very brief time.