<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap">xt7z08635m3w https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7z08635m3w/data/mets.xml Smith, Z. F. (Zachariah Frederick), 1827-1911. 1904  books b92-56-27063413 English J.P. Morton, : Louisville, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. New Orleans (La.), Battle of, 1815. Battle of New Orleans  : including the previous engagements between the Americans and the British, the Indians, and the Spanish which led to the final conflict on the 8th of January, 1815 / by Zachary F. Smith. text Battle of New Orleans  : including the previous engagements between the Americans and the British, the Indians, and the Spanish which led to the final conflict on the 8th of January, 1815 / by Zachary F. Smith. 1904 2002 true xt7z08635m3w section xt7z08635m3w 


   Z. F. SMITH,
Mlemiber of The Filson Club.


FILSON CLUB PUBLICATIONS No. 19


                         THE


  Battle of Ne w Orleans

                      INCLUDING THE

Previous Engagements between the Americans and the
      British, the Indians, and the Spanish which
           led to the Final Conflict on the
                 8th of January, 1815

                          BY


      ZACHARY F. SMITH
Member of The Filson Club and Author of a History of Kentucky
         and School Editions of the same


             HI II utrateb


        LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
    JOHN P. MORTON  COMPANY
       PRINTERS TO THE FILSON CLUB
                1904


    COPYRIGHTED BY

THE FILSON CLUB
    and All Rights Reserved
         1904


                   PREFACE


IN the preparation of the following account of the
     "Battle of New Orleans," I have availed myself of
all accessible authorities, and have been placed under obli-
gations to Colonel R. T. Durrett, of Louisville, Kentucky.
I have had free access to his library, which is the largest
private collection in this country, and embraces works
upon almost every subject. Besides general histories
of the United States and of the individual States, and
periodicals, newspapers, and manuscripts, which con-
tain valuable information on the battle of New Orleans,
his library contains numerous works more specifically
devoted to this subject. Among these, to which I have
had access, may be mentioned Notices of the War of i8I 2,
by John M. Armstrong, two volumes, New York, i840;
The Naval History of Great Britain from I783 to i830,
by Edward P. Brenton, two volumes, London, i834;
History of the Late War, by H. M. Brackenridge, Phila-
delphia, i839; An Authentic History of the Second War
for Independence, by Samuel R. Brown, two volumes,
Auburn, i8I5; History of the Late War by an American


Prefrace


(Joseph  Cushing), Baltimore,  i8i6;  Correspondence
between General Jackson and General Adair as to the
Kentuckians charged by Jackson with inglorious flight,
New Orleans, i8x5; An Authentic History of the Late
War, by Paris M. Davis, New York, i836; A Narrative
of the Campaigns of the British Army by an Officer
(George R. Gleig), Philadelphia, i821; History of Louis-
iana, American Dominion, by Charles Gayarre, New York,
i866; The Second War with England, illustrated, by J. T.
Headley, two volumes, New York, i853; History of the
War of i8 I 2 between the United States and Great Britain,
by Rossiter Johnson, New York, i882; The Pictorial
Field-book of the War of i8I2, by Benjamin J. Lossing,
New York, i868; The War of i8I2 in the Western Country,
by Robert B. McAfee, Lexington, Kentucky, i8i6; His-
torical Memoirs of the War of I814-i815, by Major A.
Lacarriere Latour, Philadelphia, i8i6; Messages of James
Madison, President of the United States, parts one and
two, Albany, i8I4; The Military Heroes of the War of
i8I2, by Charles J. Peterson, Philadelphia, i858; The
Naval War of i8I2, by Theodore Roosevelt, New York,
i889; The History of the War of i812-I5, by J. Russell,
junior, Hartford, i8i5; The Glory of America, etc., by
R. Thomas, New York, i834; Historic Sketches of the
Late War, by John L. Thomson, Philadelphia, i8i6;
The Life of Andrew Jackson, by Alexander Walker, Phila-


iv


                      Preface                       v

delphia, i867; A Full and a Correct Account of the Mili-
tary Occurrences of the Late War between Great Britain
and the United States, by James Williams, two volumes,
London, I 8 I 8.
   I have also been placed under obligations to Mr.
William Beer, librarian of the Howard Library of New
Orleans, which has become a depository of rare works
touching the history of the South Mississippi Valley, and
especially relating to the War of i812 and the battle of
New Orleans. A list of all the works in this library which
Mr. Beer placed at my disposal would be too long for
insertion here, but the following may be mentioned:
Claiborne's Notes on the War in the South, Goodwin's
Biography of Andrew Jackson, Reid and Easten's Life
of General Jackson, Nolte's Fifty Years in Both Hemi-
spheres, Report of Committee on Jackson's Warrant for
Closing the Halls of the Legislature of Louisiana, The
Madison Papers, Ingersoll's Historic Sketch of the Second
War between Great Britain and the United States,
Cooke's Seven Campaigns in the Peninsula, Hill's Recol-
lections of an Artillery Officer, Coke's History of the Rifle
Brigade, Diary of Private Timewell, and Cooke's Narra-
tive of Events. No one would do justice to himself or
his subject if he should write a history of the battle of
New Orleans without availing himself of the treasures
of the Howard Library.                  Z. F. SMITH.


This page in the original text is blank.


             INTRODUCTION


E NGLAND was apparently more liberal than Spain or
      France when, in the treaty of I783, she agreed to the
Mississippi River as the western boundary of the United
States. Spain was for limiting the territory of the new
republic on the west to the crest of the Alleghany Moun-
tains, so as to secure to her the opportunity of conquering
from England the territory between the mountains and
the Great River. Strangely enough and inconsistently
enough, France supported Spain in this outrageous effort
to curtail the territory of the new republic after she had
helped the United States to conquer it from England,
or rather after General Clark had wrested it from England
for the colony of Virginia, and while Virginia was still in
possession of it. The seeming liberality of England,
however, may not have been more disinterested than the
scheming of Spain and France in this affair. England
did not believe that the United States could exist as a
permanent government, but that the confederated States
would disintegrate and return to her as colonies. The King


viii                  Intoduction

of England said as much when the treaty was made. If,
then, the States were to return to England as colonies,
the more territory they might bring with them the better,
and hence a large grant was acknowledged in the treaty
of peace. The acts of England toward the United States
after acknowledging their independence indicate that the
fixing of the western boundary on the Mississippi had as
much selfishness as liberality, if indeed it was not entirely
selfish.
   The ink was scarcely dry upon the parchment which
bore evidence of the ratified treaty of I783 when the
mother country began acts of hostility and meanness
against her children who had separated from her and
begun a political life for themselves. When the English
ships of war, which had blockaded New York for seven
long years, sailed out of the harbor and took their course
toward the British Isles, instead of hauling down their
colors from the flagstaff of Fort George, they left them
flying over the fortification, and tried to prevent them
from being removed by chopping down all the cleats for
ascent, and greasing the pole so that no one could climb
to the top and pull down the British flag or replace it by
the colors of the United States. An agile sailor boy,
named Van Arsdale, who had probably ascended many
trees in search of bird's nests, and clambered up the masts


                      Introduction                    ix

of ships until he had become an expert climber, nailed
new cleats to the flagstaff and climbed to its summit,
bearing with him the flag of the new republic. When
he reached the top he cut down the British flag and sus-
pended that of the United States. This greasy trick
may have been the act of some wag of the retiring fleet,
and might have been taken for a joke had it not been
followed by hostile acts which indicated that this was
the initial step in a long course of hostility and meanness.
   But it was soon followed by the retention of the lake
forts which fell into British hands during the Revolution-
ary War, and which, by the terms of the treaty, were to
be surrendered. Instead of surrendering them according
to the stipulations of the treaty, they held them, and not
only occupied them for thirteen years, but used them as
storehouses and magazines from which the Indians were
fed and clothed and armed and encouraged to tomahawk
and scalp Americans without regard to age or sex. And
then followed a series of orders in council, by which the
commerce of the United States was almost swept from
the seas, and their sailors forcibly taken from American
ships to serve on British. These orders in council were
so frequent that it seemed as if the French on one side
of the British Channel and the English on the other were
hurling decrees and orders at one another for their own


xIntroduction


amusement while inflicting dire injuries on other nations,
and especially the Americans.
   Had it not been for these hostile acts of the British
there would have been no War of i8I2. Had they con-
tinued to treat the young republic with the justice and
liberality to which they agreed in fixing its western bound-
ary in the treaty of I783, no matter what their motive
may have been, there would have been no cause for war
between the two countries. The Americans had hardly
recovered from the wounds inflicted in the Revolutionary
War. They were too few and too weak and too poor to
go to war with such a power as England, and moreover
wanted a continuance of the peace by which they were
adding to the population and wealth of their country.
What they had acquired in the quarter of a century since
the end of the Revolutionary War was but little in com-
parison with the accumulations of England during long
centuries, and they were not anxious to risk their all in
a conflict with such a power; but young and weak and few
as they were, they belonged to that order of human
beings who hold their rights and their honor in such high
regard that they can not continuously be insulted and
injured without retaliation. The time came when they
resolved to bear the burdens of war rather than submit
to unjustice and dishonor.


x


Introduction


   In the French and Indian war which preceded the
Revolution there was fighting for some time before a
formal declaration of war. The English drove the French
traders from the Ohio Valley, and the French forced out
the English while the two nations were at peace. The
French chassed from one of their forts to another with
fiddles instead of drums, and the English with fowling-
pieces instead of muskets rambled over the forest, but
they sometimes met and introduced each other to acts
of war while a state of hostility was acknowledged by
neither. Something like a similar state of things pre-
ceded the War of i8I2. Tecumseh was at work trying
to unite all the tribes of Indians in one grand confederacy,
ostensibly to prevent them from selling their lands to the
Americans, but possibly for the purpose of war. While
he was at this work his brother, the Prophet, had con-
vinced the Indians that he had induced the Great Spirit
to make them bullet-proof, and the English so encour-
aged them with food and clothing and arms that they
believed they were able to conquer the Americans, and
began to carry on hostilities against them without any
formal declaration of war by either party. The battle
of Tippecanoe, which came of this superstition among
the Indians and this encouragement from England, may
be considered the first clash of arns in the War of i8I2.


xi


xii                   Introduction

The English took no open or active part in this battle,
but their arms and ammunition and rations were in it,
and after it was lost the Indians went to the English and
became their open allies when the War of i8I2 really
began. Whether the English were allies of the Indians
or the Indians allies of the English, they fought and bled
and died and were conquered together after the initial
conflict at Tippecanoe, in i8ii, to the final battle at New
Orleans in I815, which crowned the American arms with
a glory never to fade.
   The Filson Club, whose broad field of work in history,
literature, science, and art is hardly indicated by the name
of the first historian of Kentucky, which it bears, has
deemed three of the battles which were fought during
the War of i812 as the most important of the many that
were waged. These three were, first, the battle of Tippe-
canoe, regarded as the opening scene of the bloody drama;
second, the battle of the Thames, by which the power
of the British was crushed in the west and northwest,
and third, the battle of New Orleans, which ended the
war in a glorious victory for the Americans. The Club
determined to have the history of these three battles
written and filed among its archives, and to have the
matter published for the benefit of the public. Hence,
the task was undertaken by three different members of
the Club.


II


This page in the original text is blank.


Introduction


   The first of these, "The Battle of Tippecanoe," was
prepared for the Club by Captain Alfred Pirtle, and pub-
lished in i900 as Filson Club Publication Number I5.
It is an illustrated quarto of one hundred and sixty-seven
pages, which gives a detailed account of the battle of
Tippecanoe and the acts of the Indians and British which
led to it and the important consequences which followed.
The names of the officers and soldiers, and especially those
of Kentucky who were engaged in it, are given so far as
could be ascertained, and the book is a historic record
of this battle, full enough and faithful enough to furnish
the reader with all of the important facts.
   The second, "The Battle of the Thames," the 5th of
October, I813, was undertaken by Colonel Bennett H.
Young, and appeared in I903 as the eighteenth publi-
cation of the Filson Club. It is an elaborately illustrated
quarto of two hundred and eighty-six pages, and presents
a detailed account of the acts which led up to the main
battle and the engagements by land and water which
preceded it. It contains a list of all the Kentuckians who
as officers and privates were in the battle. The reader
who seeks information about this battle need look no
further than its pages.
  The third and last of these important battles occurred
at New Orleans the 8th of January, 18I5. Its history


xiii


Introducfion


was prepared for the Club by Mr. Z. F. Smith, and now
appears as Filson Club Publication Number Nineteen,
for the year I 904. It is an illustrated quarto in the
adopted style of the Club, which has been so much
admired for its antique paper and beautiful typography.
It sets forth with fullness and detail the hostilities which
preceded and led to the main battle, and gives such a
clear description of the final conflict by the assistance
of charts as to enable the reader to understand the
maneuvers of both sides and to virtually see the battle
as it progressed from the beginning to the end. This
battle ended the War of i8I2, and when the odds against
the Americans are considered, it must be pronounced
one of the greatest victories ever won upon the battle-
field. The author, Mr. Z. F. Smith, was an old-line Whig,
and was taught to hate Jackson as Henry Clay, the leader
of the Whigs, hated him, but he has done the old hero
full justice in this narrative, and has assigned him full
honors of one of the greatest victories ever won. Although
his sympathies were with General Adair, a brother Ken-
tuckian, he takes up the quarrel between him and Gen-
eral Jackson and does Jackson full and impartial justice.
If Jackson had been as unprejudiced against Adair as
the author against Jackson, there would have been noth-
ing like a stain left upon the escutcheon of the Ken-


xiv


                     Introduction                    xv

tuckians who abandoned the fight on the west bank of the
Mississippi because it was their duty to get out of it rather
than be slaughtered like dumb brutes who neither see
impending danger nor reason about the mistakes of supe-
riors and the consequences. He who reads the account
of the battle of New Orleans which follows this intro-
duction will know more about that battle than he knew
before, or could have learned from any other source in so
small a compass.
                          R. T. DURRETT,
                               President of The FlRson Club.


                ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                     PFAU
The Author.   . . . . . . . . . . . .         Frontispiece
Seat of War in Louisiana and Florida.  ...   . ..  8
Position of the American and British Armies near New
    Orleans on the 8th of January, i85       ..24
Battle of New Orleans, on the 8th of January, i8i5,  .  56
General Andrew Jackson.   . . . .. . . . . .          72
General John Adair . . . . . . . . . . . . .           2 II2
Governor Isaac Shelby....     . .1...   .  . .    .  i64
Colonel Gabriel Slaughter.  .. . . . . .1. . . . 174


THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS


     GULF COAST CAMPAIGN, PRECEDING THE FINAL
                      STRUGGLE.

ON the 26th of November, i814, a fleet of sixty great
      ships weighed anchor, unfurled their sails, and
put to sea, as the smoke lifted and floated away from
a signal gun aboard the Tonnant, the flagship of Admiral
Sir Alexander Cochrane, from Negril Bay, on the coast of
Jamaica. Nearly one half of these vessels were formid-
able warships, the best of the English navy, well divided
between line-of-battle ships of sixty-four, seventy-four,
and eighty guns, frigates of forty to fifty guns, and sloops
and brigs of twenty to thirty guns each. In all, one
thousand pieces of artillery mounted upon the decks
of these frowned grimly through as many port-holes,
bidding defiance to the navies of the world and safely
convoying over thirty transports and provisioning ships,
bearing every equipment for siege or battle by sea and
for a formidable invasion of an enemy's country by land.
Admiral Cochrane, in chief command, and Admiral Mal-
combe, second in command, were veteran officers whose
services and fame are a part of English history.


The Battle of New Orleans


   On board of this fleet was an army and its retinue,
computed by good authorities to number fourteen thou-
sand men, made up mainly of the veteran troops of the
British military forces recently operating in Spain and
France, trained in the campaigns and battles against
Napoleon through years of war, and victors in the end in
these contests. Major Latour, Chief Engineer of General
Jackson's army, in his "Memoirs of the War in Florida
and Louisiana in i814-15," has carefully compiled from
British official sources a detailed statement of the regi-
ments, corps, and companies which constituted the army
of invasion under Pakenham, at New Orleans, as follows:

Fourth Regiment-
   King's Own, Lieutenant-colonel Brooks ............  750
Seventh Regiment-
   Royal Fusileers, Lieutenant-colonel Blakency .......  850
Fourteenth Regiment-
   Duchess of York's Own, Lieutenant-colonel Baker ... 350
Twenty-first Regiment-
   Royal Fusileers, Lieutenant-colonel Patterson ....... goo
Fortieth Regiment-
  Somersetshire, Lieutenant-colonel H. Thornton ... I,ooo
Forty-third Regiment-
   Monmouth Light Infantry, Lieutenant-colonel Pat-
     rickson  ......................................  850
Forty-fourth Regiment-
   East Essex, Lieutenant-colonel Mullen . .........  750


The Battle of New    Orleans


Eighty-fifth Regiment-
   Buck Volunteers, Lieutenant-colonel Wm. Thornton.
Ninety-third Regiment-
   Highlanders, Lieutenant-colonel Dale..............
Ninety-fifth Regiment-
   Rifle Corps, Major Mitchell......................
First Regiment-
   West India (colored), Lieutenant-colonel Whitby...
Fifth Regiment-
   West India (colored), Lieutenant-colonel Hamilton ...
A detachment from the Sixty-second Regiment........
Rocket Brigade, Artillery, Engineers, Sappers and


650

1,100

500


700

700
350


  Miners .......................................... I,500
Royal Marines and sailors from the fleet .............. 3,500

    Total ............       .................. I4,450

    Including artillerists, marines, and others, seamen of
the ships' crews afloat, there were not fewer than eigh-
teen thousand men, veterans in the service of their coun-
try in the lines of their respective callings, to complete
the equipment of this powerful armada.
   At-the head of this formidable army of invasion were
Lord Edward Pakenham, commander-in-chief; Major-gen-
eral Samuel Gibbs, commanding the first, Major-general
John Lambert, the second, and Major-general John Keene,
the third divisions, supported by subordinate officers,
than whom none living were braver or more skilled in


3


The Battle of New Orleans


the science and practice of war. Nearly all had learned
their lessons under the great Wellington, the conqueror
of Napoleon. Since I 588, when the combined naval
and military forces of England were summoned to repel
the attempted invasion and conquest of that country
by the Spanish Armada, the British Government had
not often fitted out and sent against an enemy a com-
bined armament so powerful and so costly as that which
rendezvoused in the tropical waters of Negril Bay in
the latter autumn days of i8I4. Even the fleet of Nelson
at the Battle of the Nile, sixteen years before, where
he won victory and immortal honors by the destruction
of the formidable French fleet, was far inferior in number
of vessels, in ordnance, and in men to that of Admiral
Cochrane on this expedition. The combined equipment
cost England forty millions of dollars.
   In October and November of this year, the marshal-
ing of belligerent forces by sea and land from the shores
of Europe and America, with orders to rendezvous at
a favorable maneuvering point in the West Indies, caused
much conjecture as to the object in view. That the
War Department of the English Government meditated
a winter campaign somewhere upon the southern coasts
of the United States was a common belief; that an inva-
sion of Louisiana and the capture and occupation of New


4


The Battle of New Orleans


Orleans was meant, many surmised. For reasons of
State policy, the object of the expedition in view was
held a secret until the day of setting sail. Now it was
disclosed by those in command that New Orleans was
the objective point, and officers and men were animated
with the hope that, in a few weeks more, they would
be quartered for the winter in the subjugated capital
of Louisiana, with a dream that the coveted territory
might be occupied and permanently held as a posses-
sion of the British Empire.
  The Government at Washington was advised that,
during the summer and early autumn months of i814,
our implacable enemy was engaged in preparations for
a renewal of hostilities on a scale of magnitude and activity
beyond anything attempted since the war began; but
it seemed not fully to interpret the designs and plans
of the British leaders. Especially unfortunate, and fin-
ally disastrous to the American arms, was the inaptness
and inertness of the Secretary of War, General Arm-
strong, in failing to adopt, promptly and adequately,
measures to meet the emergency. For almost a year
after the destruction of the English fleet on Lake Erie
by Commodore Perry, and of the English army at the
battle of the Thames by General Harrison, a period
of comparative repose ensued between the belligerents.


5


The Bat/e of New Orleans


The British Government was too much absorbed in deliv-
ering the coup-de-main to the great Napoleon to give
attention to America. But her opportunity came. The
allied powers defeated and decimated the armies of the
French Emperor, and forced him to capitulate in his
own capital. On the 3d of March, i8I4, they entered
Paris. On the eleventh of May Napoleon abdicated,
and was sent an exile to Elba.
  England was at peace with all Europe. Her con-
quering armies and fleets would be idle for an indefinite
period; yet, it would be premature to disband the former
or to dismantle the latter. Naturally, attention turned
to the favorable policy of employing these vast and ready
resources for the chastisement and humiliation of her
American enemies, as a fit closing of the war and pun-
ishment for their rebellious defiance. Under orders, the
troops in France and Spain were marched to Bordeaux
and placed in a camp of concentration, from which they
were debarked in fleets down the river Garonne, and
across the Atlantic to their destinations in America.
An English officer with these troops expressed the sen-
timent- of the soldiers and seamen, and of the average
citizen of England at this time, in this language: "It
was the general opinion that a large proportion of the
Peninsular army would be transported to the other side


6


The Battle of New Orleans


of the Atlantic, that the war would there be carried on
with vigor, and that no terms of accommodation would
be listened to, except such as a British general should
dictate in the Republican Senate."
   Overtuges for the negotiation of a treaty of peace
had been interchanged between the two nations at war
as early as January. By April the American Commis-
sioners were in Europe, though the arrival of the English
Commissioners at Ghent for final deliberations was delayed
until August. Meanwhile, several thousands of these
Peninsular troops were transported to reinforce the
army in Canada. On the sixteenth of August a small
fleet of British vessels in Chesapeake Bay was reinforced
by thirty sail under the command of Admirals Cochrane
and Malcombe, one half of which were ships of war. A
large part of this flotilla moved up the Potomac
and disembarked about six thousand men, under com-
mand of General Ross. The battle of Bladensburg was
fought on the twenty-fourth, followed immediately by
the capture of Washington and the burning of the Gov-
ernment buildings there. A few days after, the com-
bined naval and military British forces were defeated
in an attack on Baltimore, General Ross, commander-
in-chief, being among the slain. About the same ddte,
Commodore McDonough won a great and crushing victory


7


The Battle of New Orleans


over the English fleet on Lake Champlain, while the
British army of fourteen thousand men, under Sir George
Prevost, was signally defeated by the Americans, less
than seven thousand in number, at Plattsburg, on the
border of New York.
   Such was the military situation in the first month
of autumn, i8I4. Seemingly, the British plenipoten-
tiaries had a motive in reserve for delaying the negotia-
tions for peace. England yet looked upon the United
States as her wayward prodigal, and conjured many
grievances against the young nation that had rebuked
her cruel insolence and pride in two wars. She nursed
a spirit of imperious and bitter revenge. A London
organ, recently before, had said: " In diplomatic circles it
is rumored that our military and naval commanL 0rs in
America have no power to conclude any armistice or
suspension of arms. Terms will be offered to the Ameri-
can Government at the point of the bayonet. America
will be left in a much worse situation as a commercial
and naval power than she was at the commencement
of the war. "
  The reverses to the British arms on Lake Champlain,
at Plattsburg, and at Baltimore, virtually ended hon-
tilities in the Northern States for the remaining peric-d
of the war. Winter approaching, all belligerent forces


8


\


This page in the original text is blank.


The Battle of New Orleans


that could be marshaled would be transferred to the
waters of the Gulf for operations on the coast there. The
malice and wanton barbarity of the English in burning
the national buildings and property at Washington, in
the destruction and loot of houses, private and public,
on the shores of the Chesapeake and Atlantic, and in
repeated military outrages unjustified by the laws of
civilized warfare, had fully aroused the Government
and the citizenship to the adoption of adequate measures
of defense for the Northern and Eastern States. It was
too late, however, to altogether repair the injuries done
to the army of the Southwest by the tardiness and default
of the head of the War Department, which, as General
Jackson said in an official report, threatened defeat and
disaster to his command at New Orleans. Indignant
public sentiment laid the blame of the capture of Wash-
ington, and of the humiliating disasters there, to the
same negligence and default of this official, which led
to his resignation soon after.

GENERAL JACKSON ASSUMES COMMAND OF THE SEVENTH
        MILITARY DISTRICT OF THE SOUTHWEST.

  General Andrew Jackson had, in July, i8I4, been
appointed a major-general in the United States army,
and assigned the command of the Southern department,


9


IO           The Batlle of New Orleans

with headquarters at Mobile. His daring and successful
campaigns against the Indian allies of the British the
year previous had won for him the confidence of the
Government and of the people, and distinguished him
as the man fitted for the emergency. At the beginning
of the war British emissaries busily sought to enlist,
arm, and equip all the Indians of the Southern tribes
whom they could disaffect, as their allies, and to incite
them to a war of massacre, pillage, and destruction against
the white settlers, as they did with the savage tribes
north of the Ohio River. In this they were successfully
aided by Tecumseh, the Shawanee chief, and his brother,
the Prophet. These were sons of a Creek mother and
a Shawanee brave. By relationship, and by the rude
eloquence of the former and the mystic arts and incan-
tations of the latter, they brought into confederacy with
Northern tribes-which they had organized as allies of the
English in a last hope of destroying American power
in the West-almost the entire Creek nation. These
savages, though at peace under treaty and largely sup-
ported by the fostering aid of our Government, began
hostilities after their usual methods of indiscriminate
massacre and marauding destruction, regardless of age
or sex or condition, against the exposed settlers. The
latter sought refuge as they could in the rude stockade


The Battle of ANew Orleans


stations, but feebly garrisoned. At Fort Mims, on the
Alabama River, nearly three hundred old men and women
and children, with a small garrison of soldiers, were cap-
tured in a surprise attack by a large body of warriors,
and all massacred in cold blood. This atrocious outbreak
aroused the country, and led to speedy action for defense
and terrible chastisement for the guilty perpetrators.
The British officers offered rewards for scalps brought
in, as under Proctor in the Northwest, and many scalps
of men and women murdered were exchanged for this
horrible blood-money.
   In October, i8I3, General Jackson led twenty-five
hundred Tennessee militia, who had been speedily called
out, into the Creek country in Alabama. A corps of one
thousand men from Georgia, and another of several hun-
dred from the territory of Mississippi, invaded the same
from different directions. Sanguinary battles with the
savages were fought by Jackson's command at Tallase-
hatche, Talladega, Hillabee, Autosse, Emuckfau, Toho-
peka, and other places, with signal success to the American
arms in every instance. The villages and towns of the
enemy were burned, their fields and gardens laid waste,
and the survivors driven to the woods and swamps. Not
less than five thousand of the great Ocmulgee nation
perished in this war, either in battle or from the ruinous


I I


The Battle of New    Orleans


results of their treachery a</pre>