Sustained honor: The Age of Liberty Established

by John R. Musick

Some historians of good authority state that Johnson shot Tecumseh with his pistol, just as his own horse fell dead under him;--that as the colonel's horse was sinking under innumerable wounds, he discovered a large Indian, whose regal feathers denoted his rank, coming toward him with uplifted tomahawk. He drew a pistol and shot him through the heart. This has been denied. [Footnote: Seventeen years ago an aged man, who was in the conflict, informed the author that he saw Tecumseh fall, that he was shot through the head by a private soldier; "a big Kentuckian.">[

Fernando accompanied the army of General Harrison to Niagara to join the army of the centre; but Harrison, becoming offended at General Armstrong, secretary of war, resigned and quit the service. Fernando with his detached party, seven only of Captain Rose's original company, joined the army under Gen. Boyd on November 10th, 1813, was with them on the next day, the 11th, when they fought the enemy five hours at Chrysler's farm in Canada. The Americans were driven from the field with a loss of three hundred and thirty-nine.

The writer must pause a moment to mention some of the stirring incidents in which Fernando did not participate. On March 4th, 1813, Mr. Madison was inaugurated for his second term. Terrence, who chanced to be in Washington, greeted the president with: "Now Misther Prisident, we'll whip the British sure."

The Emperor of Russia having offered his services as mediator between the United States and Great Britain, the president, on March 8th, 1813, appointed commissioners to treat for peace. On the 10th of April, the British attacked Lewiston, Delaware, but after several days bombardment abandoned the siege. On April 27, the Americans under General Pike besieged upper York under General Sheaffe. The British, deserted by their Indian allies, who fled before the roar of artillery, took post with the garrison near the governor's house and opened a fire of grape and round-shot on the invader. The battery was silenced and all thought the British had surrendered. General Pike was sitting on the stump of a tree talking with a captive British officer, when a tremor of the earth was felt, 'immediately followed by a tremendous explosion near by. The British, unable to hold the fort had fired a magazine of gunpowder on the edge of the lake. The effect was terrible. Fragments of timber and huge stones, of which the magazine walls were built, were scattered in every direction over a space of several hundred feet. When the smoke floated away, the scene was appalling. Fifty-two Americans lay dead, and one hundred and eighty others were wounded. Forty of the British were also slain. General Pike, two of his aides and the captive officer were mortally hurt. The dying general was taken to one of Chauncey's vessels. His benumbed ears heard the shout of victory, when the British ensign was pulled down at York. Just before he died, the captured British flag was brought to him. He smiled and made a sign for it to be placed under his head. This was done, and he expired. Though Sheaffe and the larger part of his force escaped, the civil authorities and a larger part of the militia formally surrendered York. The American loss in killed and wounded was two hundred and eighty-six; the British lost one hundred and forty besides prisoners.

On May 27, General Scott and Commodore Perry captured Fort George at Niagara, and at the same time Sir George Prevost was repulsed at Sackett's Harbor, New York, by General Brown. On June 6th, Generals Chandler and Winder were surprised and captured, though their troops retired. On the 23d, Colonel Boerstler with six hundred men was captured at Beaver Dam by a superior force of British.

While Perry was defeating the enemy on Lake Erie, and the Johnson brothers were defeating Proctor and slaying Tecumseh, the discontent which that redoubtable chief had stirred up in the South was beginning to have its effect among the Creeks. On August 30, 1813, they attacked Fort Mimms, which they set on fire and captured, massacring all but twenty out of four hundred men, women and children. The British agent at Pensacola, it is said, had offered five dollars each for scalps, and many of the savages carried the scalps of women and children there to claim their reward.

A cry for help went northward and the brave Tennesseeans flew to the relief of their neighbors. General Andrew Jackson, military commander of that region, was disabled by a wound received from a brilliant but brutal ruffian named Thomas H. Benton, who was afterward United States Senator from Missouri.

Late in September, Colonel John Coffee, at the head of five hundred cavalry, hurried to the Creek frontier. He rendezvoused at Fayetteville, where Jackson joined him early in October. On the 3d, Coffee attacked the Indians at Tallahatchee (near Jacksonville, Benton county, Alabama) and killed two hundred warriors;--not a warrior escaped. On the 8th of November, Jackson defeated the Indians with great slaughter at Talladega. Late in November, General Floyd with nine hundred Georgians and four hundred friendly Indians attacked the hostile savages at Autossee and drove them from the holy ground.

Weatherford, the Tecumseh of the South, was attacked, on the 23d of November, at Econachaca. Weatherford was defeated and escaped by leaping his horse from a precipice into the river and swimming to the other side.

On January 21, 1814, General Jackson was fiercely attacked by the Creeks at Emucfau on the west bank of the Tallapoosa River. Though he repulsed the Indians, he thought it best to retire from the field.