“They are too strong!” said he, promptly. “With the force at hand we’ll be taking too many chances in attacking them.”
“You’ll not fall back,” objected the officers.
Jackson nodded and smiled grimly.
“But don’t be afraid, sir,” said he. “The Creeks will still be here when we come again.”
Having made up his mind, Jackson at once set his little army upon its retrograde motion. Eagerly the savages followed, hanging to his flanks persistently. At a stream called the Enotachopco, the Creeks attacked the rear guard fiercely; but with the aid of the six-pounder gun they were held back until the stream was crossed.
On the twelfth day after its departure the army reached Fort Strother once more. The result of the expedition was that the great prospective movement of the Indians was halted and that two hundred of them had fallen in the fighting. Jackson’s loss was twenty-four killed and seventy-one wounded.
CHAPTER XIV
THE BATTLE OF THE HORSESHOE
Not only did the fights at Emuckfan and Enotachopco Creeks dash the spirit of the Indians, but they also gave Jackson’s raw troops a taste of war as it is waged in the wilderness. Instead of harrying the border and setting it ablaze as they had no doubt intended, the savages were content to hold their fort at the bend of the Tallapoosa and await the aggression of the white man.
Being reinforced by more militia and the thirty-ninth regiment of regulars, General Jackson grew quite at ease and confident that success was at last at hand. With three thousand troops he moved down the river, where some thirty miles south he established a new base of supplies called Fort Williams.
“Let me manage to collect enough provisions to last my army but four weeks,” said the commander at this place, “and I will end the war at a blow.”