The Big Brother: A Story of Indian War

by George Cary Eggleston

The expedition left Fort Glass on the 11th of November, 1823. Tandy Walker was its guide, and every man in the party knew that Tandy was not likely to be long in leading them to a place where Indians were plentiful. He knew every inch of country round about, and nothing pleased him so well as a battle in any shape. The day after they left Fort Glass, Dale's men reached the river at a point eighteen miles below the present town of Clairborne, and about fifteen miles below the root fortress. Here they crossed, in two canoes, to the eastern shore of the river, and spent the night without sleep. The next morning Austill, with six men, ascended the river in the canoes, while Dale, with the rest of the party, marched up the bank. About a mile below the root fortress, Dale who was marching some distance ahead of his men, came upon some Indians at breakfast, and without waiting for his men to come up, shot their chief. The rest fled precipitately, leaving their provisions behind. Pushing on, Dale reached a point about two hundred yards below the root fortress, and there determined to recross the river. The canoes transported the men as rapidly as possible, but when all were over except Dale and eight or nine men (among whom were Smith, Austill and Cæsar), and only one canoe remained at the eastern side of the stream, a large party of Indians, numbering, as was afterwards ascertained, nearly three hundred, attacked the handful of whites still remaining. These retreated from the field, where they were breakfasting, and keeping the Indians in check by careful and well-aimed firing, were about to get into the canoe and escape to the opposite bank, about four hundred yards away, when they discovered that their retreat was cut off by a large canoe full of Indians, eleven in all, which had come out of the mouth of the creek just above. The savages tried to approach the shore, but, in spite of the fact that by careening the canoe to one side and lying down they were able to conceal themselves, they were prevented from landing by Austill and one or two other men. Two of the Indians jumped into the water and tried to swim to the shore, while the others, firing over the gunwale of the boat, were sorely annoying the whites. Austill shot one of the swimmers but the other escaped to the shore, and joined the savages there, informing them, as Dale supposed, of the weakness of his force, which they had not yet discovered. Dale called to the men on the other side of the river to cross and assist him, but they, after making an abortive attempt to send a canoe load across, remained idle spectators of the terribly unequal conflict. Dale, seeing that no help was to come from them, and knowing that the Indians would shortly overcome him by sheer force of numbers, resolved upon a recklessly daring manœuvre, namely, an attempt to capture the Indian canoe! He called out to his comrades.

"I'm going to fight the canoe with a canoe. Who will go with me?"

Austill, Smith and Cæsar volunteered at once, and Cæsar took his post as steersman, while the three stalwart soldiers were leaping into the canoe for the purpose of fighting hand to hand the nine Indians opposed to them. As they shot out from the shore the savages on the bank delivered a fierce fire upon them, but fortunately without effect. The savages in the canoe had exhausted their powder, and Dale's party would have had an advantage in this but for the fact that their own powder had become wet as they were getting into their canoe. The fight must be hand to hand, but they were not the men to shrink from it. When the boats struck, the Indians leaped up and began using their rifles as clubs. Austill, who was in the bow of Dale's boat, received the first shock of the battle, but Cæsar promptly swung his boat around, and grappling the other canoe held the two side by side during the whole fight. Dale's boat was a very small one, and he to relieve it sprang into the Indian canoe, thereby giving his comrades more room and crowding the Indians so closely together as to embarrass their movements. The blows now fell thick and fast. Austill was knocked down into the Indian boat, and an Indian was about to put him to death when Smith saved him by braining the savage. Austill then rose, and snatching a war club from one of the Indians used that instead of his rifle. Eight of the savages were slain, and Dale found himself face to face with the solitary survivor, whom he recognized as a young Muscogee with whom he had been for years on terms of the most intimate friendship, and whom he loved, as he declared, almost as a brother. He lowered his up-raised rifle to spare his friend, but the savage would not accept quarter. He cried out in the Creek language, which Dale understood as well as he did English.

"Big Sam, you are a man, and I am another! Now for it!" and with that the two joined in a struggle for life. A blow from Dale's gun ended at once the canoe fight and the life of the young brave, who, even from his friend, would not accept the mercy which his nation was not ready to show to the whites. It is said that to the day of his death Dale could not speak of this incident without shedding tears.

Dale and his comrades had still a duty to do and some danger yet to encounter. The party remaining on the bank was in imminent peril, and must be rescued at all hazards. The little canoe was not large enough to carry them all, and so the big one must be cleared of the dead Indians in it, and the heroes of the canoe fight accomplished this under a severe fire from the bank. Then jumping into the captured boat, they paddled to the shore, and taking their hard pressed comrades on board, crossed under fire to the other side, whence they marched to Fort Glass, twelve miles away, having dealt the savages a severe blow without losing a man. Austill was hurt pretty badly on the head, and a permanent dent in his skull attested the narrowness of his escape.

This battle was waged within sight of the root fortress, the drift pile being indeed the cover from which the Indians fought. Tom, as we know, went to the look-out at the beginning of the fight, and he remained there to the end in the hope that the fortune of battle might possibly bring the whites within call, and thus afford the little refugee band a chance of escape. No such chance came, however, and sadly enough the two boys, for Joe was also in the look-out, watched the passage of the last of Dale's men across the stream, half a mile below.

"Mas' Tom," said Joe, "dem folks gwine right straight to de fort."

"Yes, of course," said Tom. "What of it?"

"Nothin', only I wish I could go wid 'em, and tell 'em Mas' Sam's here sick."

"So do I, Joe, but we can't go with them, and it's no use wishing."