George Cary Eggleston

“ He laments that he has been compelled, even incidentally, to hint at a retreat when speaking to freemen and to soldiers. Never until you forget all that is due to yourselves and your country will you have any practical understanding of that word. Shall an enemy wholly unacquainted with military evolutions, and who rely more for victory on their grim visages and hideous yells than upon their bravery or their weapons—shall such an enemy ever drive before them the well-trained youths of our country, whose bosoms pant for glory, and a desire to avenge the wrongs they have received? ”

“ As the executive of the State, it is your duty to see that the full quota of troops be constantly kept in the field for the time they have been required. You are responsible to the government; your officer to you. Of what avail is it to give an order if it be never executed and may be disobeyed with impunity? Is it by empty mandates that we can hope to conquer our enemies and save our defenceless frontiers from butchery and devastation? Believe me, my valued friend, there are times when it is highly criminal to shrink from responsibility or scruple about the exercise of our powers. ”

“ In his tastes and instincts this son of a Scotchman was altogether an Indian. He devoted himself earnestly to the work of acquiring the knowledge of woodcraft and the skill in the chase which his people held in highest esteem. He was a notable huntsman, a fine swimmer, a tireless walker. He was a master marksman, alike with the bow and with the rifle. He was passionately fond of all athletic sports, too, and by his skill in them he won the admiration—almost the worship—of all the youth of his nation. ”

“ In that war there was one man more conspicuous than any other—more relentless, more daring, more desperate in his refusal to give or to accept quarter, and at the same time more brilliant in attack and defence, abler in counsel, and having greater skill in the field than any of his fellow-chiefs—a man who fought Jackson, Claiborne, Flournoy, Floyd, and Coffee, whose troops, coming from different quarters of the country, surrounded him on every side and outnumbered him on every field ”

“ Red Eagle was too shrewd and too well informed to believe the predictions of his prophets Sinquista and Francis, who told the Creeks that if they would completely abandon those things which they had learned of the whites and become utter savages, not one of them should be killed in the war; that the Great Spirit would rain down fire upon the whites, create quagmires in their path, cause the earth to open and swallow them, and draw charmed circles around the camps of the Creeks, into which no white man could come without immediately falling down dead. ”

“ When two men so brave as these meet there is fellowship between them, because there is brotherhood between their souls. When Red Eagle thus faced Jackson and offered to accept death at his hands in return for peace for the now helpless Creeks there was peace between the two great-souled men, who knew each other by the free-masonry of a common heroism, a common courage, and a common spirit of self-sacrifice. ”

“ If these men had had a single spark of soldierly spirit left in them—if the manhood itself had not all gone out of them—such an appeal as this would have shamed them into their duty. It is incredible that men who had once had spirit enough to volunteer in the service of their country should have lost it so utterly that they could resist this plea to their pride, their duty, and their regard for their own good name; but such was the fact. Out of the whole brigade, officers and men, only one was found with manliness enough to stay. ”

“ To them Jackson replied that he had no further desire to make war, but that peace would not be granted to the nation until Red Eagle—or Weatherford, for by that name only the whites called the Creek commander—should be brought to him bound hand and foot. It was his purpose to hang Red Eagle as a punishment for the massacre of women and children at Fort Mims, he knowing nothing, of course, of the warrior's daring efforts to prevent that bloody butchery, and to make of the affair a battle, not a massacre. ”

“ It is not by bellowings and screams that the wounds of death are inflicted. You will teach these noisy assailants how weak are their weapons of warfare, by opposing them with the bayonet. What Indian ever withstood its charge? What army of any nation ever withstood it long?
"Yes, soldiers, the order for a charge will be the signal for victory. In that moment your enemy will be seen flying in every direction before you. ”

“ There, of course, he would have been safe beyond the jurisdiction of Jackson and of the government which Jackson represented; but Red Eagle was a patriot, and when he was told that the fierce commander of the whites would give no terms to the Creeks under which the women and children now starving in the woods could be saved, except upon his surrender, that the price of peace for his people was his own ignominious death—he calmly resolved to give himself to suffer for his race, to purchase with his blood that peace which alone could save his people from destruction. ”

“ No, fellow-soldiers, great as are the grievances that have called us from our homes, we must not permit disorderly passions to tarnish the reputation we shall carry along with us. We must and will be victorious; but we must conquer as men who owe nothing to chance, and who in the midst of victory can still be mindful of what is due to humanity! We will commence the campaign by an inviolable attention to discipline and subordination. Without a strict observance of these, victory must ever be uncertain, and ought hardly to be exulted in even when gained. ”

“ Can any one, under these circumstances and under these prospects, consent to an abandonment of the camp; of all that we have acquired in the midst of so many difficulties, privations, and dangers; of what it will cost us so much to regain; of what we never can regain—our brave wounded companions, who will be murdered by our unthinking, unfeeling inhumanity? Surely there can be none such! No, we will take with us when we go our wounded and sick. They must not, shall not perish by our cold-blooded indifference. ”

“ For the first time in the history of Indian warfare, the fighting force of the savages in this battle was utterly destroyed, not a single warrior escaping alive.
There were eighty-four prisoners taken, all of them being women and children. Not only General Coffee, but his officers and men also, would gladly have ended the fight as soon as victory was theirs, sparing the warriors who had survived the first onset, and they constantly offered quarter not only to bodies of men who were fighting together, but to single individuals who were manifestly at their mercy, and to wounded warriors ”

“ It was not two bodies of troops struggling for possession of some strategic point, but a horde of savages battling with a devoted band of white men in a struggle the only issue of which was death. The savages fought not to conquer but to kill the whites, every one, women and children as well as men; and the whites fought with the desperation of doomed men whose only chance of life was in victory. ”

“ Men who a little while since were offering up prayers for permission to chastise the merciless savage, who burned with impatience to teach them how much they had hitherto been indebted to our forbearance, are now, when they could so easily attain their wishes, seeking to be discharged. The heart of your general has been pierced. The first object of his military affections and the first glory of his life were the volunteers of Tennessee. The very name recalls to him a thousand endearing recollections. But these brave men, these volunteers, have become mutineers. ”

“ But in the moment of action coolness and deliberation must be regarded; your fire made with precision and aim; and when ordered to charge with the bayonet you must proceed to the assault with a quick and firm step, without trepidation or alarm. Then shall you behold the completion of your hopes, in the discomfiture of your enemy. Your general, whose duty as well as inclination is to watch over your safety, will not, to gratify any wishes of his own, rush you unnecessarily into danger. He knows, however, that it is not in assailing an enemy that men are destroyed ”

“ By the very force that is now recommended to be dismissed: for I am first told to retire into the settlements and protect the frontiers; next to discharge my troops; and then that no measures can be taken for raising others. No, my friend, if troops be given me, it is not by loitering on the frontiers that I will seek to give protection: they are to be defended, if defended at all, in a very different manner—by carrying the war into the heart of the enemy's country. All other hopes of defence are more visionary than dreams. ”

“ While yet a little child, Red Eagle showed that he had inherited his father's love for horses, and his persistence in riding races, breaking unruly colts, and dashing madly over the roughest country on the back of some one of his father's untamed animals, gave him the finest skill and most consummate grace of a perfect horseman. ”

“ Colonel Carroll executed his part of the manœuvre perfectly. The moment that the savages attacked the rear company in the column, he faced his men about, deployed them in line, and received the shock of the onset manfully; but the right and left columns behaved badly, breaking and fleeing precipitately without firing a gun. The worst of it was that their flight bred a panic among the troops of the centre, and nearly the whole force fled like a mob, Colonel Stump actually leading the retreat, riding frantically into and across the creek. ”

“ The assault of the savages was fierce and determined. They always fought better under Red Eagle's eye than at other times. Even when Captain Thomas brought his artillery to the front, supported by Captain Adams's riflemen, and opened that fire of grapeshot which Indians have everywhere found it most difficult to stand against, the Red Sticks not only held their ground, but gallantly advanced their line until it was not more than thirty yards distant from the guns, and there, at short pistol range, endured the murderous discharges from the cannon. ”

“ Even hope has ended. Once I could animate my warriors to battle. But I cannot animate the dead. My warriors can no longer hear my voice. Their bones are at Talladega, Tallushatchee, Emuckfau, and Tohopeka. ”

“ The chief function of education is to train the mind, and the chief difference between the educated man and one who is not so is that the mind of the one has been trained into a state of high efficiency while that of the other has not. Reading and writing offer the shortest roads, the simplest means, to this end; but they are not the only ones, and if Red Eagle had little or no knowledge of letters, he had nevertheless an active intellect, trained under excellent masters to a high degree of efficiency, and hence was, in the true sense of the term, a man of education. ”

“ As soon as the right was fully engaged, the main body of the Indians advanced with spirit and confidence against the left. The assault was well made, the shock falling upon the whole front of the left flank at once; but it was equally well received. For a time the firing was very heavy and at short range; then, knowing that raw troops can stand any amount of active work better than a strain which must be borne passively, Jackson, who had ridden to this part of the field as soon as the alarm was given, ordered his men to cease firing, fix bayonets, charge, and sweep the field. ”

“ He knew and told his men that the force of an Indian attack was greatest in its beginning; that unless success crowned their efforts Indians were apt to weary of their work after a little while. He urged his followers, therefore, to fight with determination and with hope. He urged every non-combatant who could do so to join in the defence, and even some of the women did so. His judgment of the Indian character was right, and it was presently vindicated by the conduct of the savages, who relaxed their efforts to take the fort, and began making off with what plunder they could secure. ”