The village of Hampton was now at the mercy of an enemy who showed no mercy, and was immediately given up to plunder and outrage, which continued for two days and nights. The town was not burned, but every house was ruined as to its furniture and decorations, except the one in which the commanding officers were quartered. Such deeds were perpetrated by the British soldiers and sailors, unrestrained by their officers, as had hardly been paralleled even in Indian warfare. Neither age nor sex nor innocence was any protection. In one case an old and infirm citizen was murdered in the presence of his aged wife; and when she remonstrated, a soldier presented a pistol at her breast and shot her dead. Women with infants in their arms were pursued till they threw themselves into the river to escape, children were wantonly killed, and such shameful scenes were enacted as cannot even be mentioned in a history written for youth. The soldiers destroyed all the medical stores, that were necessary for the care of the sick and wounded. They also stole a considerable number of slaves and sent them to the West Indies, not to be liberated, but to be sold and turned into cash. When they abandoned the town, they went in such haste that they left behind a large quantity of provisions, arms, and ammunition, and some of their men, who were captured next day by Cooper's cavalry.
The indignation aroused by the unhappy fate of Hampton was such that General Robert R. Taylor, commandant of the district, addressed a letter to Admiral Warren, inquiring whether the outrages were sanctioned by the British commanders, and if not, whether the perpetrators were to be punished. The Admiral referred the letter to Sir Sydney Beckwith, who did not attempt to deny that the outrages had been committed as charged, but said that "the excesses at Hampton, of which General Taylor complains, were occasioned by a proceeding at Craney Island. At the recent attack on that place, the troops in a barge which had been sunk by the fire of the American guns had been fired on by a party of Americans, who waded out and shot these poor fellows while clinging to the wreck of the boat; and with a feeling natural to such a proceeding, the men of that corps landed at Hampton." General Taylor at once appointed a court of inquiry, which by a careful investigation found that none of the men belonging to the wrecked barge had been fired upon, except one who was trying to escape to that division of the British troops which had landed, and he was not killed; while, so far from shooting the unfortunate men in the water, some of the Americans had waded out to assist them. The report embodying these facts was forwarded to Sir Sydney, who never made any reply—which perhaps is the most nearly graceful thing a man can do when he has been convicted of a deliberate and outrageous falsehood.
In the far South a better success attended the American arms this summer than either on the Northern border or the Atlantic coast. This was owing partly to the greater simplicity of the task that lay before the commanders, and partly to the greater energy with which they entered upon it, but chiefly to the difference in the enemy. In Canada and on the coast, our men contended with forces largely made up of British regulars, at that time perhaps the most efficient soldiery in the world. In Florida and Alabama they contended indeed with British arms, but they were in the hands of Indians.
The English agents at Pensacola, with the connivance of the Spanish authorities there—for Florida belonged to Spain till the United States purchased it in 1819—had supplied the Creeks with rifles, ammunition, and provisions, and sent them on the war-path, not against the American armies, for there were none in that region, but against the settlers and scattered posts along the navigable rivers. A premium of five dollars was offered for every scalp—whether of man, woman, or child—which the savages might bring to the British agency.
The militia of Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee were called out to meet the emergency, and before the year was over the Creeks had been made to suffer a terrible retribution.
As one body of these Indians, commanded by a half-breed named McQueen, started for the interior, a militia force under Colonel James Caller set out to intercept them. On the 27th of July they were found encamped on a small, low peninsula enclosed in one of the windings of Burnt Corn Creek. Caller promptly attacked them, and after a sharp action routed them. But he called back the pursuing detachment too soon, the Indians rallied, a part of the whites fled in panic, and the remainder had a severe fight with the savages, in which they were outnumbered and defeated. Caller lost two men killed and fifteen wounded.
This victory inspired the Indians with new confidence, while it spread terror among the settlers. The next hostile movement was against Fort Mimson Lake Tensas, near Alabama River, forty miles northward of Mobile. This work was a stockade enclosure of about an acre, which a farmer named Mims had erected for the protection of his buildings and cattle. It was loop-holed for musketry all round, and at one corner was an uncompleted blockhouse. When the alarm of Indian raids had gone forth, the settlers flocked to Fort Mims from all sides, and Governor Claiborne sent a hundred and seventy-five volunteers, under Major Daniel Beasley, to defend it. The space was so crowded that it became necessary to extend the stockade, and another enclosure was made on the eastern side, but the fence between was left standing. On the 29th of August, a thousand Creek warriors, commanded by William Weathersford, a half-breed, arrived within a quarter of a mile of the fort, and concealed themselves in a ravine. Some of them were seen by two Negroes who had been sent out to tend cattle; but when they had given the alarm, and a scouting party had failed to find any trace of Indians, they were not only disbelieved, but severely flogged for lying.
After many false alarms, the occupants of the fort had become incredulous and careless of danger, their commander perhaps most so of all. On the 30th the gates stood wide open, no guard was set, and when the drum beat for dinner the soldiers laid aside their arms and went to their meal at the moment when the savages sprang from their hiding-place and with their well-known yell rushed toward the stockade. Officers and men sprang to arms at the frightful sound. Major Beasley, in attempting to close the outer gate, was knocked down and run over by the foremost of the assailants, many of whom poured into the outer enclosure, where they quickly murdered all the whites whom they found. Beasley himself crawled off in a corner to die, and the command devolved upon Captain Bailey.
When the Indians attempted to enter the inner enclosure, they were stopped by a fire through the loop-holes in the partition. Five of their prophets, who had proclaimed that their charms and incantations rendered the American bullets harmless, all fell dead at the first discharge. This produced a temporary check, but new swarms of the naked savages came up, and a desperate fight through the loop-holes was maintained for several hours. The soldiers stood manfully at their posts, were assisted by some of the women and boys, and killed a large number of the Indians, who, on the other hand, were sure of hitting somebody whenever they fired into the crowded enclosure. Numbers of the red-skins were constantly dancing, hooting, and yelling around the fort, many of whom were shot by the old men of the garrison, who had ascended to the attic of the largest house and cut holes in the roof.
The enemy were getting tired of this costly work, when Weathersford came up, exhorted them to new efforts, and directed fire-tipped arrows to be shot into the fort. In a short time the buildings were in flames, and the miserable inmates, driven by the heat, were huddled in one corner, when the Indians burst in and rapidly completed the massacre. Children were taken by the heels, and their brains dashed out against the walls; women were butchered in a manner unknown since the wars of the ancient Jews; a few Negroes were kept for slaves, but not one white person was left alive—excepting twelve, who had secretly cut an opening through the stockade and escaped by way of the lake. Of the five hundred and fifty-three persons in the fort at noon, at least four hundred perished before night; and it was believed that about as many of the Indians had been killed or wounded.