The tidings of this massacre of course excited horror and indignation in every part of the country, but nowhere met so prompt and practical a response as in Tennessee. The Legislature of that State called for thirty-five hundred volunteers—in addition to fifteen hundred whom she had already enrolled in the service of the general Government—voted an appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars, and placed them under command of General Andrew Jackson. * To General John Cocke was entrusted the work of gathering the troops from East Tennessee, and providing subsistence for the whole. Fayetteville was appointed as the general rendezvous, and Colonel John Coffee was sent forward to Huntsville, Alabama, with a cavalry force of five hundred men, which by the time he arrived there was increased to thirteen hundred.
Jackson reached Fayetteville on the 7th of October, began drilling his men, and on the 11th, hearing from Coffee that the enemy was in sight, marched them to Huntsville—thirty-two miles—in five hours. For the work in hand, he could not have asked for better material than these Western pioneers, who were skilled in wood-craft, who knew the tricks and manners of the enemy, and were as fearless as they were cunning. Among them were Sam Houston and the eccentric and now famous David Crockett.
The only serious trouble was in forwarding the
* At this time the General was lying helpless at Nashville, from wounds received in a disgraceful affray.
supplies. At the most southerly point on Tennessee River, while he sent out the cavalry to forage, Jackson drilled the infantry and built Fort Deposit, intended as a depot for provisions when the rise of water should allow them to be sent down.
Forty-five miles southward, at the Ten Islands of the Coosa, friendly Indians were calling for help against the hostile Creeks. By a week's march, in which he foraged on all sides and burned several villages, Jackson reached that place. The enemy were in camp at Talluschatches (now Jacksonville), thirteen miles eastward, and on the night of November 2d Colonel Coffee was sent out with a thousand mounted men and a few friendly Creeks, to attack them. At sunrise he divided his force into two columns, the heads of which united near the place, while the remainder, swinging outward and forward, made a semicircle about the little town. Within this, two companies were pushed forward to entice the Indians from their shelter. This accomplished, these companies retreated, and the whole line opened fire upon the savages and rapidly closed in upon them. "Our men rushed up to the doors of the houses," said Coffee in his report, "and in a few minutes killed the last warrior of them. The enemy fought with savage fury, and met death with all its horrors, without shrinking or complaining. Not one asked to be spared, but fought as long as they could stand or sit." About two hundred Indians were killed, and eighty-four women and children were made prisoners. The Americans lost five men killed and forty-one wounded.
At this point Jackson was joined after a time by the forces from East Tennessee under General Cocke, and here he built Fort Strother. But before Cocke's arrival he learned that a few friendly Indians in Fort Talladega, thirty miles south, were completely surrounded by a thousand Creeks, who would soon reduce them by starvation. The news was brought by a chief who had disguised himself in a hog-skin and escaped from the fort by night.
Jackson at once put himself at the head of two thousand men, and marched to the relief of the little fort. On the 9th of November he arrived within striking distance of the enemy, when he deployed his columns, placing the volunteers on the right, the militia on the left, and the cavalry on the wings. He adopted precisely the same plan of attack that Coffee had used at Talluschatches; but it was not so completely successful, for two companies of the militia temporarily gave way, and a part of the cavalry had to dismount and fill the gap. Jackson believed that but for this he should have killed every one of the thousand hostile Indians before him. As it was, two hundred and ninety-nine of them were left dead on the field, while the remainder were chased to the mountains, and left a bloody track as they ran. The loss of the whites was fifteen killed and eighty-six wounded.
The Indians of the Hillabee towns, in what is now Cherokee county, sent a messenger to Jackson to sue for peace, through whom he replied that they could only have it on condition of returning prisoners and property and surrendering for punishment those who had been engaged in the massacres. But while they awaited an answer, General Cocke, working his way down the Coosa, sent a force, under General White, to attack these towns. White marched rapidly, destroying everything in his path, and on the 18th of November appeared before the principal village, which he at once fell upon, and killed sixty unresisting Indians, and carried back with him the squaws and children. The Indians, who supposed all the whites were under Jackson's command, looked upon this as a piece of treachery, and became more desperate than ever. For this unfortunate affair, General Cocke has been severely blamed; but he was tried by a court-martial, and honorably acquitted, while his own published statement makes it clear that he acted in entire good faith. He was as destitute of provisions as Jackson was, and thought if he pushed on to Fort Strother it would only double the number of starving soldiers there.
While Jackson was coming down from the north, General John Floyd, with nine hundred and fifty Georgians and four hundred Indians, was coming from the east. He first found the enemy at Autosse, on the Tallapoosa, thirty miles east of the present site of Montgomery, where, on the 29th of November, he attacked them, drove them from their villages to holes and caves in the river-bank, burned all their dwellings, and then hunted down and killed as many of them as possible. At least two hundred fell. The whites lost eleven killed and fifty-four wounded.