Hered Reminiscences and Traditions
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T. H. BALL, Historical Secretary of the Old Settlers© Association of Lake County, Indiana; Honorary member of Lake County Teachers© Association; Active Member of Indiana Academy of Science; Corresponding Member of Wisconsin State Historical Society; Honorary Member of Trinity Historical Society of. Texas. Author of Lake County, 1834-1872, Lake of the lied Cedars, ClarTie County, A labama, Notes on Luke©s Gospel Poems and Hymns Annie B., &c., &c. H. 5. HALBERT, Member of Mississippi State Historical Society; Member of Alabama State Historical Society; Contributor to American Antiquarian; Contributor to Alabama Historical Reporter. THE CREEK WAR OF 1813 AND 1814. BY H. S. HALBERT AND T. H. BALL. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: DONOHUE & HENNEBERRY. MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA: WHITE, WOODRUFF, & FOWLER. 1895. e H COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY H. S. HALBERT AND T. II BALL, DONOHUE & HENNEBERKY, PRINTERS AND BINDERS, CHICAGO. PREFACE. HEN this work was commenced, several years W ago, it was not expected that it would become in size what it has grown to be. It was then expected only to give facts in regard to the Creek war as connected with the white settlers in what is now South Alabama, giving especially a fuller account of the attack on Fort Sinquefield with other gathered reminiscences and traditions. But when large libraries were examined and many his torical works were consulted, and so little that was really reliable could be found in regard to that bor der war, and its real beginning seeming to be alto gether unknown to Northern writers, it was thought best to make thorough research and to prepare a somewhat voluminous work for the sake of those, or for the use of those, who, in years to come, in the North as well as in the South, might justly be expected to be interested in a work as full, and, in some respects, as minute in details, as this. If, therefore, any readers should think that some of the chapters, as those in regard to Tecumseh and Fort Mims, are more full than was needful, or that, in some others, too many personal, biographical inci dents and sketches or notes are given, let them please bear in mind that the work is designed for more than one classo of rea.d^s; let the more critical charitably trust" that trh^fa will _-b,e some readers interested ,m:tH^ minute details ^ami^ the apparent 10 PREFACE. digressions; and let all who may read rest assured that the authors have, with the idea of different classes of readers before their minds, endeavored faithfully to obtain and impartially to present his toric truth. November 19,1894. Well may the inhabitants of Alabama, especially, say in regard to the Ked men, "Though "mid the forests where they roved, There rings no hunter©s shout, Yet their names are on our waters, And we may not wash them out;" for well, of the Indian tongue, as speaking in the flowing waters, does an Alabama poet say, ©© ©Tis heard where CHATTAHOOCHEE pours His yellow tide along; It sounds on TALLAPOOSA©B shores, And OOOSA swells© the song; Where lordly ALABAMA sweeps, The symphony remains; And young CAHAWBA proudly keeps The echo of its strains; Where TUSCALOOSA©S waters glide, From stream and town ©tis heard, And dark TOMBECKBEE©S winding tide Repeats the olden word; Afar, where Nature brightly wreathed Fit Edens for the free, Along TUSCUMBIA©S bank ©tis breathed, By stately TENNESSEE; And south, where, from CONECUH©S springs, ESCAMBIA©S waters steal, ; -_ The ancient iriejckly stiH^in^?, ^ /- and MOBILE." r -V--,-- v CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTBK I. The Choctaw-Muscogee Tribes. CHAPTER II. Causes of the Creek "War. CHAPTER III. Tecuraseh among the Chickasaws and Choctaws. CHAPTER IY. Tecumseh among the Creeks. CHAPTER Y. The War Cloud Gathering. CHAPTER YI. The Stockades. CHAPTER YII. Inter-Tribal Councils of the Creeks and the Choctaws. CHAPTER YIII. The Battle of Burnt Corn. CHAPTER IX. FortMiins. CHAPTER X. The Kimbell-James Massacre. CHAPTER XI. Attack on Fort Sinquefleld. CHAPTER XII. The"Night Courier. CHAPTER XIII. Incidents of the War in the Fork. CHAPTER XIY. Choctaws and Chickasaws join the American Army. CHAPTER XY. The Bashi Skirmish. CHAPTER XYI. Beard and Tandy Walker. CHAPTER XVII. The Canoe Fight. CHAPTER XVIII. Battle of the Holy Ground. CHAPTER XIX. The War in the Indian Country. CHAPTER XX. Closing Events, 1814. CONCLUSION. APPENDIX. 03476 INTRODUCTION. HIS work proposes to give as accurate an T account as can now be obtained from written and printed records, from traditions, and from personal observation, of that portion of American history known as the Creek War of 1813 and 1814. Of these Creek Indians says BREWER, author of a history of Alabama: "In 1813 and 1814 they waged the bloodiest war against the whites any where recorded in the annals of the United States." Says MEEK, one of Alabama©s talented orators and poets: " Time as it passed on and filled these solitudes, with settlers, at last brought the most sanguinary era in Alabama history." And PICKETT, recognized as Alabama©s leading historian, says: "^Everything foreboded the exter mination of the Americans in Alabama, who were the most isolated and defenseless people imagin able." The reader who comes to our " Conclusion" may be disposed" to change BREWER©S statement; but he will not question the statements of PICKETT and MEEK. But this work does not propose to give in full that .part of the conflict waged in the Indian coun try which broke the power of the fierce Muscogees; but rather that part which has not been as yet so fully given, connected with the white settlers in what is now South Alabama. This portion of our 13 14 INTRODUCTION. American history, as connected with Indian border warfare, the authors of this work believe will be given more accurately and fully than has ever been done before. They propose to do justice to the Indians and justice to the whites. For this portion of history they hope to make this work an authority. And for this they suggest the possession of some special fitness; H. S. Halbert is a member of the State Historical Societies of Alabama and Mississippi. He was born in Alabama, and was, in a great measure, educated by the late Dr. J. H. Eaton, of Murf reesboro, Tennessee. He spent a portion of his early manhood in Indian campaigns on the western frontier, where he became familiar with the sight of the wild warrior with his bow and quiver, his paint and feathers; and there he conceived an abiding interest in the strange his tory and destiny of the American Indians. He has also been not a little among the civilized tribes of the Indian Territory. After four years of service in the Confederate army, he was for a number of years engaged in teaching in Texas, Mississippi, and Ala bama. While pursuing his profession in the two latter states he devoted much of his leisure to histor ical researches. He visited the homes and inter viewed some surviving soldiers and contemporaries of the Creek war of 1813 and noted down their varied recollections, thereby collecting much new material for the history of that war. He was espe cially fortunate in securing from these aged survivors a full account of the attack on Fort Sinquefield, of which only a meagre sketch is recorded in the his tories of Meek and Pickett. INTRODUCTION. 15 For a number of years past he has been engaged in educational work among the Choctaws of Missis sippi, with whose language, customs,and traditions he is familiar. From the immediate descendants of some of Pushmataha©s warriors he has been enabled to res cue from oblivion a numberof incidents in the career of that noted Mingo, and many facts in regard to Tecumseh©s Southern visit. He has, in short, been interested largely for years in studies and investiga tions connected with the Southern Indians, and has visited in person©and examined with care the Burnt Corn and Holy Ground battlefields. The Alabama Historical Keporter for January, 1885, said : " Mr. II. S. Halbert is now doing more than any man in the South, perhaps, in collecting everything con nected with the Southern Indians in the shape of history, tradition, romance, legend, etc." T. H. Ball had an early home in the state of Georgia, before 1833, not far from the Savannah Kiver, and learnedjlome of the customs and ways of the South; but in 1837, when eleven years of age, his home was transferred to the then almost unten- anted solitudes of Northwestern Indiana (where the great prairie region of the West joined the wood land growth that extended to the Atlantic) and to the banks of a beautiful lake in the region then but lately occupied by the Pottawatomie Indians, some thirty-six miles from the old Fort Dearborn of Lake Michigan, some seventy-two miles from the Tippe- canoe battle ground. He gained in those years of boyhood some knowledge of the Indians Indians that had been associated with French missionaries and with fur traders as he saw them in their wig. 16 INTRODUCTION. warns, on their ponies, in their large birch-bark canoes, and when returning from the chase, and took a deep ©nterest in Indian history and in pioneer and hunter life. His young footsteps followed the wild game and his rifle secured it where his almost immediate predecessors had been Indian hunters. From 1851 to 1855 he resided as a teacher in Clarke county, Alabama, and was there again no small part of the time in 1859 and 1860, and from 1874 to 1883.