Six months had then elapsed since the outbreak of hostilities at Burnt Corn; a year since the Little Warrior murders on the Ohio River, yet not a post had been permanently occupied within eighty miles of the fanatical centre at the fork of the Coosa and Tallapoosa.
Pinckney was obliged to apply to the governors of North and South Carolina to furnish him with men and equipments. The Governor of Georgia also exerted himself to supply the deficiencies of the national magazines.[360] By their aid Pinckney was able to collect an army with which to make another and a decisive movement into the Creek country: but before he could act, Jackson succeeded in striking a final blow.
Jackson’s success in overcoming the obstacles in his path was due to his obstinacy in insisting on maintaining himself at Fort Strother, which obliged Governor Blount to order out four thousand more militia in January for six months. Perhaps this force alone would have been no more effectual in 1814 than in 1813, but another reinforcement was decisive. The Thirty-ninth regiment of the regular army, authorized by the Act of January 29, 1813, had been officered and recruited in Tennessee, and was still in the State. Major-General Pinckney sent orders, Dec. 23, 1813, to its colonel, John Williams, to join Jackson.[361] The arrival of the Thirty-ninth regiment February 6, 1814, gave Jackson the means of coping with his militia. February 21 he wrote to his quartermaster, Major Lewis, that he meant to use his regulars first to discipline his own army.[362] “I am truly happy in having the Colonel [Williams] with me. His regiment will give strength to my arm, and quell mutiny.” His patience with militia-men had been long exhausted, and he meant to make a warning of the next mutineer.
The first victim was no less a person than Major-General Cocke of the east Tennessee militia. Cocke’s division of two thousand men, mustered for six months, began January 17 its march from Knoxville to Fort Strother.[363] Learning on the march that the west Tennessee division, mustered at the same time for the same service, had been accepted to serve only three months, Cocke’s men mutinied, and Cocke tried to pacify them by a friendly speech. Jackson, learning what had passed, despatched a sharp order to one of Cocke’s brigadiers to arrest and send under guard to Fort Strother every officer of whatever rank who should be found exciting the men to mutiny. Cocke was put under arrest when almost in sight of the enemy’s country; his sword was taken from him, and he was sent to Nashville for trial.[364] His division came to Fort Strother, and said no more about its term of service.
Having dealt thus with the officers, Jackson selected at leisure a test of strength with the men. The conduct of the Fayetteville company of the Twenty-eighth regiment of west Tennessee light infantry gave him ground for displeasure. Not only had they refused to obey the call for six months’ service and insisted on serving for three months or not at all, but they had halted on their march, and had sent their commanding officer to bargain with Jackson for his express adhesion to their terms. Learning that Jackson made difficulties, they marched home without waiting for an official reply. Jackson ordered the whole body to be arrested as deserters, accompanying his order by an offer of pardon to such as returned to duty on their own understanding of the term of service. The company was again mustered, and arrived at Fort Strother not long after the arrival of the Thirty-ninth United States Infantry.
A few weeks later an unfortunate private of the same company, named Woods, refused to obey the officer of the day, and threatened to shoot any man who arrested him. Jackson instantly called a court-martial, tried and sentenced Woods, and March 14 caused him to be shot. The execution was a harsh measure; but Jackson gave to it a peculiar character by issuing a general order in which he misstated facts that made Wood’s case exceptional,[365] in order to let the company understand that their comrade was suffering the penalty which they all deserved.
Without giving his army time to brood over this severity, Jackson ordered a general movement, and within forty-eight hours after Woods’s execution, all were well on their way toward the enemy. Jackson had with him about five thousand men, four fifths of whom expected their discharge in a month. He left them not a day’s repose.
Two lines of advance were open to him in approaching the fork of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, which was always the objective point. He might descend the Coosa, or cross to the Tallapoosa by the way he had taken in January. He descended the Coosa thirty miles, and then struck a sudden blow at the Tallapoosa towns.
The Ocfuskee Indians, elated by their success in January, collected their whole force, with that of some neighboring towns, in a bend of the Tallapoosa, where they built a sort of fortress by constructing across the neck of the Horse-shoe a breastwork composed of five large logs, one above the other, with two ranges of port-holes.[366] The interior was covered with trees and fallen timber along the river side, and caves were dug in the bank. Seven or eight hundred Indian warriors together with many women and children were within the enclosure of eighty or a hundred acres.
Jackson, after leaving a garrison at a new fort which he constructed on the Coosa, about half way to the Horse-shoe, had somewhat less than three thousand effectives.[367] With these he camped, on the evening of March 28, about six miles northwest of the bend, and the next morning advanced to attack it. “Determined to exterminate them,” he reported,[368] he detached Coffee with the mounted force of seven hundred men and six hundred friendly Indians[369] to surround the bend, along the river bank, while Jackson himself with all his infantry took position before the breastwork. At half-past ten o’clock he planted his cannon about two hundred yards[370] from the centre of the work, and began a rapid fire of artillery and musketry, which continued for two hours without producing apparent effect. Meanwhile the Cherokee allies swam the river in the rear of the Creek warriors, who were all at the breastwork, and seizing canoes, brought some two hundred Indians and whites into the Horse-shoe, where they climbed the high ground in the rear of the breastwork and fired on the Creeks, who were occupied in defending their front.