At once his fellow braves understood his purpose; they also entered the water and struck out for the further shore. The Cherokees seized the canoes; also they set fire to the Creek huts and lodges. A great blaze went up; the smoke ascended in clouds.
Seeing the flames, the infantry before the barrier of logs could no longer be held in check. They begged of the general to permit them to storm the Indian works, and Jackson, seeing their eagerness and not desiring to dampen their spirits at this critical time, finally gave the word.
With a rush, the white men, both regulars and militia, went at the log wall. Paying no attention to the sleet of arrows and bullets, they scaled it like monkeys. The first over was young Sam Houston; he had an arrow through him almost at his first move; but this did not stop him. With his clubbed rifle sweeping a path among the savages he shouted:
“Come on, boys. Strike hard, and the thing is done.”
Jack and Frank were at his heels; the infantry then came smashing down upon the Creeks; and amid the blaze and smoke of the burning huts the desperate contest was on. Rifle and pistol cracked, bows twanged, sword and tomahawk rose and fell. At length the savages felt that they were being worsted, but when they turned to run they saw that their way was blocked. Again they faced their foe and battled like cornered wolves; they did not ask for quarter and were given none. With the memory of the slaughter at Fort Mims in their minds the whites struck vengefully.
By mid-afternoon the battle was over; the Americans had forty-five men killed and about one hundred and fifty wounded. The Creeks had lost eight hundred in killed, and three hundred were prisoners.
This was the last of the Creeks as a warlike nation; almost the entire remainder of the tribe fled into Florida, where they were protected by the Spanish flag. When General Jackson a little later marched upon those villages which he knew were located upon the lower Tallapoosa, he found them deserted.
“And now,” said Jack Davis, as he and Frank sat, their rifles laid aside in the peace of the Davis farmhouse, “the war is over as far as the Creeks are concerned; and I don’t think there will be much delay about the rights to your father’s land.”
And this proved to be the case; for General Jackson, in his great treaty with the Indians at Fort Jackson some time later, secured great tracts of territory from the subdued savages in payment for the harm which they had done. In this ceded land was the old grant held by Mr. Lawrence, and as soon as his possessions could be removed from Virginia to the border-land, he took possession of it.