General Ferdinand L. Claiborne entered the country from the west in July, and built small forts at various points. On the 12th of December he left Fort Claiborne (on the site of the present town of that name) with a thousand men, and after marching more than a hundred miles northeast, he came on the 23d to an Indian town of refuge, called Econochaca, on the Alabama, west of Montgomery. This village was built upon what the Indian prophets assured the tribe was holy ground, which no white man could set, foot upon and live. No path of any kind led to it. Here the women and children had been sent for safety; here, in a little square, the prophets performed their religious rites, which are supposed to have included the burning of captives at the stake. Several captives, of both sexes, it is said were standing with the wood piled about them when Claiborne's columns appeared before the town.
The Indians, who had hurried their women and children across the river, fought desperately for a short time, and then broke and fled, many of them swimming the river and escaping. About thirty were killed. The whites lost one killed and six wounded. Claiborne sacked and burned the village, and then returned to Fort Claiborne, where his forces rapidly melted away by the expiration of their terms of service. Jackson, at Fort Strother, was in a similar predicament; and thus closed the year on the campaign at the South. It had been attended with many instances of individual bravery and exciting and romantic adventure, one of the most famous of which is known as the Canoe Fight, of which General Samuel Dale was the hero. There can be no better account of it than Dale's own, as he related it some years afterward to his friend Hon. John H. F. Claiborne, who incorporated it in his "Life of Dale." The General was on his way, November 13th, with sixty men, to attack an Indian camp on the east side of the Alabama, near what is now Dale's Ferry. He says:
"I put thirty of my men on the east bank, where the path ran directly by the river-side. With twenty men I kept the western bank, and thus we proceeded to Randon's Landing. A dozen fires were burning, and numerous scaffolds for drying meat, denoting a large body of Indians; but none were visible. About half past ten A.M. we discerned a large canoe coming down stream. It contained eleven warriors. Observing that they were about to land at a cane-brake just above us, I called to my men to follow, and dashed for the-, cane-brake with all my might. Only seven of my men kept up with me. As the Indians were in the act of landing, we fired. Two leaped into the water. Jim Smith shot one as he rose, and I shot the other. In the mean time they had backed into deep water, and three Indians were swimming on the off side of the canoe, working her as far from the shore as they could, to get out of the range of our guns. The others lay in the bottom of the canoe, which was thirty odd feet long, four feet deep, and three feet beam, made of an immense cypress-tree, specially for the transportation of corn. One of the warriors shouted to Weathersford (who was in the vicinity, as it afterward appeared, but invisible to us), 'Yos-ta-hah! yos-ta-hah!' 'They are spoiling us.' This fellow was in the water, his hands on the gunwale of the pirogue, and as often as he rose to shout we fired, but ineffectually. He suddenly showed himself breast-high, whooping in derision, and said, 'Why don't you shoot?' I drew my sight just between his hands, and as he rose I lodged a bullet in his brains. Their canoe then floated down with the current. I ordered my men on the east bank to fetch the boats. Six of them jumped into a canoe, and paddled to the Indians, when one of them cried out, 'Live Indians! Back water, boys! back water!' and the frightened fellows paddled back whence they came. I next ordered Cæsar, a free Negro fellow, to bring a boat. Seeing him hesitate, I swore I would shoot him the moment I got across. He crossed a hundred yards below the Indians, and Jim Smith, Jerry Austill, and myself got in. I made Cæsar paddle within forty paces, when all three of us levelled our guns, and all missed fire! As the two boats approached, one of them hurled his scalping-knife at me. It pierced the boat through and through, just grazing my thigh as it passed. The next moment the canoes came in contact. I leaped up, placing one of my feet in each boat. At the same instant the foremost warrior levelled his rifle at my breast. It flashed in the pan. As quick as lightning, he clubbed it, and aimed at me a furious blow, which I partially parried, and, before he could repeat it, I shivered his skull with my gun. In the mean time an Indian had struck down Jerry, and was about to despatch him, when I broke my rifle over his head. It parted in two places. The barrel Jerry seized, and renewed the fight. The stock I hurled at one of the savages. Being then disarmed, Caesar handed me his musket and bayonet.
"Finding myself unable to keep the two canoes in juxtaposition, I resolved to bring matters to an issue, and leaped into the Indian boat. My pirogue, with Jerry, Jim, and Caesar, floated off. Jim fired, and slightly wounded the Indian next to me. I now stood in the centre of their canoe—two dead at my feet—a wounded savage in the stern, who had been snapping his piece at me during the fight, and four powerful warriors in front. The first one directed a furious blow at me with his rifle; it glanced upon the barrel of my musket, and I staved the bayonet through his body. As he fell, the next one repeated the attack. A shot from Jerry Austill pierced his heart. Striding over them, the next sprung at me with his tomahawk. I killed him with the bayonet, and his corpse lay between me and the last of the party. I knew him well—Tar-cha-chee, a noted wrestler, and the most famous ball-player of his clan. He paused a moment in expectation of my attack, but, finding me motionless, he stepped backward to the bow of the canoe, shook himself, gave the war-whoop of his tribe, and cried out, 'Sam tholocco Iana dahmaska, ia-lanes-tha—lipso—lipso—lanestha. Big Sam! I am a man—I am coming—come on!' As he said this, with a terrific yell he bounded over the dead body of his comrade, and directed a blow at my head with his rifle, which dislocated my left shoulder. I dashed the bayonet into him. It glanced round his ribs, and the point hitching to his back-bone, I pressed him down. As I pulled the weapon out, he put his hands upon the sides of the canoe and endeavored to rise, crying out, 'Tar-cha-chee is a man. He is not afraid to die!' I drove my bayonet through his heart. I then turned to the wounded villain in the stern, who snapped his rifle at me as I advanced, and had been snapping during the whole conflict. He gave the war-whoop, and, in tones of hatred and defiance, exclaimed, 'I am a warrior—I am not afraid to die.' As he uttered the words I pinned him down with my bayonet, and he followed his eleven comrades to the land of spirits. "During this conflict, which was over in ten minutes, my brave companions, Smith and Austill, had been struggling with the current of the Alabama, endeavoring to reach me. Their guns had become useless, and their only paddle had been broken. Two braver fellows never lived. Austin's first shot saved my life.
"By this time my men came running down the bank, shouting that Weathersford was coming. With our three canoes we crossed them all over, and got safely back to the fort."
CHAPTER XI. NAVAL BATTLES OF 1813
The Hornet and the Peacock—The Chesapeake and the Shannon—The Argus and the Pelican—The Enterprise and the Boxer—Decatur blockaded at New London—A New Embargo.