David Crockett: His Life and Adventures

by John S. C. Abbott

The white soldiers, leading the Indians, continued their course until they reached the river. Following it down, they came opposite the point where the wigwams stood upon the island. The two Indian hunters who had been killed had gone out from this peaceful little encampment. Several Indian children were playing around, and the man and woman whom they had before seen were still beating their roots. Another Indian woman was also there seen. These peaceful families had no conception of the disaster which had befallen their companions who were hunting in the woods. Even if they had heard the report of the rifles, they could only have supposed that it was from the guns of the hunters firing at game.

The evening twilight was fading away. The whole party was concealed in a dense canebrake which fringed the stream. Two of the Indians were sent forward as a decoy—a shameful decoy—to lure into the hands of two hundred warriors an unarmed man, two women, and eight or ten children. The Indians picked out some of their best marksmen and hid them behind trees and logs near the river. They were to shoot down the Indians whom others should lure to cross the stream.

The creek which separated the island from the mainland was deep, but not so wide but that persons without much difficulty could make themselves heard across it. Two of the Indians went down to the river-side, and hailed those at the wigwams, asking them to send a canoe across to take them over. An Indian woman came down to the bank and informed them that the canoe was on their side, that two hunters had crossed the creek that morning, and had not yet returned. These were the two men who had been so inhumanly murdered. Immediate search was made for the canoe, and it was found a little above the spot where the men were hiding. It was a very large buoyant birch canoe, constructed for the transportation of a numerous household, with all their goods, and such game as they might take.

This they loaded with warriors to the water's edge, and they began vigorously to paddle over to the island. When the one solitary Indian man there saw this formidable array approaching he fled into the woods. The warriors landed, and captured the two women and the little children, ten in number, and conveyed their prisoners, with the plunder of the wigwams, back across the creek to their own encampment. This was not a very brilliant achievement to be accomplished by an army of two hundred warriors aided by a detachment of sixteen white men under Major Russel. What finally became of these captives we know not. It is gratifying to be informed by David Crockett that they did not kill either the squaws or the pappooses.

The company then marched through the silent wilderness, a distance of about thirty miles east, to the Conecuh River. This stream, in its picturesque windings through a region where even the Indian seldom roved, flowed into the Scambia, the principal river which pours its floods, swollen by many tributaries, into Pensacola Bay. It was several miles above the point where the detachment struck the river that the Indian encampment, to which the two murdered men had alluded, was located. But the provisions of the party were exhausted. There was scarcely any game to be found. Major Russel did not deem it prudent to march to the attack of the encampment, until he had obtained a fresh supply of provisions. The main body of the army, which had remained in Florida, moving slowly about, without any very definite object, waiting for something to turn up was then upon the banks of the Scambia. Colonel Blue was in command.

David Crockett was ordered to take a light birch canoe, and two men, one a friendly Creek Indian, and paddle down the stream about twenty miles to the main camp. Here he was to inform Colonel Blue of Major Russel's intention to ascend the Conecuh to attack the Creeks, and to request the Colonel immediately to dispatch some boats up the river with the needful supplies.

It was a romantic adventure descending in the darkness that wild and lonely stream, winding through the dense forest of wonderful exuberance of vegetation. In the early evening he set out. The night proved very dark. The river, swollen by recent rains, overflowed its banks and spread far and wide over the low bottoms. The river was extremely crooked, and it was with great difficulty that they could keep the channel. But the instinct of the Indian guide led them safely along, through overhanging boughs and forest glooms, until, a little before midnight, they reached the camp. There was no time to be lost. Major Russel was anxious to have the supplies that very night dispatched to him, lest the Indians should hear of their danger and should escape.

But Colonel Blue did not approve of the expedition. There was no evidence that the Indian encampment consisted of anything more than half a dozen wigwams, where a few inoffensive savages, with their wives and children, were eking out a half-starved existence by hunting, fishing, and digging up roots from the forest. It did not seem wise to send an army of two hundred and sixteen men to carry desolation and woe to such humble homes. Crockett was ordered to return with this message to the Major. Military discipline, then and there, was not very rigid. He hired another man to carry back the unwelcome answer in his place. In the light canoe the three men rapidly ascended the sluggish stream. Just as the sun was rising over the forest, they reached the camp of Major Russell. The detachment then immediately commenced its march down the River Scambia, and joined the main body at a point called Miller's Landing. Here learning that some fugitive Indians were on the eastern side of the stream, a mounted party was sent across, swimming their horses, and several Indians were hunted down and shot.

Soon after this, the whole party, numbering nearly twelve hundred in all, commenced a toilsome march of about two or three hundred miles across the State to the Chattahoochee River, which constitutes the boundary-line between Southern Alabama and Georgia. Their route led through pathless wilds. No provisions, of any importance, could be found by the way. They therefore took with them rations for twenty-eight days. But their progress was far more slow and toilsome than they had anticipated. Dense forests were to be threaded, where it was necessary for them to cut their way through almost tropical entanglement of vegetation. Deep and broad marshes were to be waded, where the horses sank almost to their saddle-girths. There were rivers to be crossed, which could only be forded by ascending the banks through weary leagues of wilderness.

Thus, when twenty-eight days had passed, and their provisions were nearly expended, though they had for some time been put on short allowance, they found that they had accomplished but three-quarters of their journey. Actual starvation threatened them. But twice in nineteen days did Crockett Taste of any bread. Despondency spread its gloom over the half-famished army. Still they toiled along, almost hopeless, with tottering footsteps. War may have its excitements and its charms. But such a march as this, of woe-begone, emaciate, skeleton bands, is not to be counted as among war's pomps and glories.