Memorial record of Alabama. A concise account of the state's political, military, professional and industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people. Volume I, Part 11

Author: Taylor, Hannis, 1851-1922; Wheeler, Joseph, 1836-1906; Clark, Willis G; Clark, Thomas Harvey; Herbert, Hilary Abner, 1834-1919; Cochran, Jerome, 1831-1896; Screws, William Wallace; Brant & Fuller
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Madison, Wis., Brant & Fuller
Number of Pages: 1164

USA > Alabama > Memorial record of Alabama. A concise account of the state's political, military, professional and industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people. Volume I > Part 11

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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.

branches. Governor Lewis, who recognized this body, at once telegraphed for federal troops who, upon their arrival, "reported to Mr. Strobach, who stationed them on a vacant lot adjoining the capitol." The next move of the governor was to appeal for aid to the attorney-general of the United States, who telegraphed terms of settlement between the two rival bodies; and under these terms the two houses organized on Decem- ber 17, 1870. When it appeared that under the attorney-general's plan the democrats still had a majority on joint ballot Mckinstry, the repub- lican lieutenant-governor, announced that he had changed his mind, and that the senate could not be organized under the "plan" until a pending contest of Miller, republican. against Martin, the democratic incumbent, could be settled. When Mr. Hamilton of Mobile, a democrat, appealed . from this decision of the chair, Mckinstry, as an act of brute force, refused to allow the appeal, and the democrats, believing that the acts of the presiding officer would be upheld by the troops near by, submitted. During the interval required for taking testimony in the Miller-Martin case, Edwards, a democratic senator, called home by sickness, paired on this case with Glass, republican, who, when the case was brought up, broke his pair and voted. When Parks, a democrat, changed his vote and moved a reconsideration in order to get time to send for Edwards, Mckinstry refused to entertain it. Parks then offered to put the motion himself, but his colleagues begged him to desist, believing, as they said, that resistance to the presiding officer would involve military interference. In order to complete the conspiracy and to re-elect Spencer, it became necessary for certain republican friends to entertain a democratic member of the house, convivially inclined, who was too sick next day to attend the election. The absent member claimed that his liquor was drugged. By such devious and revolutionary means as these Spencer was enabled to sit for six years more in the senate of the United States.

ALABAMA REDEEMED.

In 1874 the people of Alabama, worn out by the insult, the outrage, the plunder to which they had been so long subjected at the hands of home-born, traitors and foreign adventurers, resolved to rise in their might, and, by peaceful means, reassert their right to control their own destiny. The republicans, who had long ago forced the color line upon the white people of the state really interested in her welfare, were then met by them, marshaled in the ranks of the democracy. Under the lead of George S. Houston of Limestone. the democrats carried the state, elect- ing large majorities in both branches of the legislature. The political control thus won has never been lost, and under its influence has been matured the wonderful advance which Alabama has made since that time. The choice of Governor Houston was a most happy one; by temperament, by political and personal training he was peculiarly adapted to the ardu- ous task of reorganization which a disordered state cast upon him. By

POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATE.

his long service in the federal house of representatives, where he was an experienced member of the committee of ways and means, he was spe- cially qualified for the task of restoring the state finances to a healthy condition-a work in which he was most ably seconded by Levi W. Law- ler and T. B. Bethea, his colleagues upon the commission appointed for the settlement of the state debt. When the republicans went into power their auditor, Mr. Reynolds, in his first report said: "Alabama stands in a proud position in the financial world. * * Nothing but gross mismanagement of her finances will cause her credit to decline." At that time Mr. Reynolds reported that the

Bonded debt of the state was. $5,270,000.00

Educational fund and miscellaneous. 3,095,683.51

$8,355,683.51

The "gross mismanagement" was so liberally supplied that the repub- lican governor, Lewis, was obliged to report to the legislature, Novem- ber 17th, 1873, that he was "unable to sell for money any of the state bonds." The reason of that condition of things appeared in the official report of September 30th, 1874, which disclosed the fact that the debt of $8,355,683.51 had grown to the sum of, including straight and endorsed railroad bonds, $25,503,593.30. To the task of readjusting and settling this vast debt. then beyond the ability of the state to bear in full, was for years the work of the funding commission, whose highest praise may be summed up in the statement that, through their wise efforts, the bur- den was so reduced by amicable settlements with the creditors of the state that, on the 30th September, 1888, the total was but $12,085,219.95. As a part of the good work of reorganization the constitution born of the bayonet in 1868 was superseded in 1875 by the present constitution under which the state is now governed-an instrument whose severe restrictions upon official salaries, and upon the power of the legislature to indulge in financial extravagance, clearly indicate the spirit of rigid economy out of which it was born. Since the completion of Governor Houston's wise and fruitful stewardship. the executive power has passed in turn to Gov- ernors Cobb, O'Neal, Seay and Jones, who, by their prudence, zeal and fidelity, have made the administration of the state's affairs a model of efficiency and economy.

It should be the source of the greatest comfort to every Alabamnian, now that the trials, the dangers, the humiliations incident to civil war and reconstruction have yielded to the repose of peace and to the security of good government. to feel that with every curse there has been mixed a blessing, with every trial a compensation. No matter how righteous the institution of slavery may have been in its origin, no matter how humanely it may have been administered, the fact remains that, by its abolition, the white people of the state have been emancipated from a system which must inevitably have hindered for a long period of time

MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.

that wider industrial development which will soon make of Alabama the foremost mining, if not manufacturing, state of the union. No state that hugs to herself the delusion that she is very rich, because she has mill- ions of capital invested in her own peasantry, can possibly be as well off as she would be if those millions were invested in all kinds of industrial pursuits, while she still enjoys all the actual benefits arising out of the labor of such peasantry without owning them. Such has been the prac- tical effect of the war upon the material wealth of Alabama which, as it increases, will be invested in all forms of really productive property. As the results of the war have thus added to the actual wealth of the state, those results have also brought to her a peace more profound than she has enjoyed for fifty years. Certainly from the year 1840 down to 1874, the sectional strife, which was ceaseless, fevered the public mind and made the future uncertain. Heavy has been the price which has been paid for the peace we now enjoy, but the comfort is in the thought that it must be permanent and lasting, because all of the great causes which divided the union against itself have been forever eradicated. And here it may be well to note a mistaken idea, born of a natural and noble impulse, that the revolting death of the wise and patriotic Lincoln, and the consequent destruction of his conservative plan of reconstruction, was to the south an unqualified misfortune. It is no more true that revolutions never go backward than that revolutions in their onward progress never stop short of their inevitable and logical conclusion. No matter what the intentions of the republican party may have been at the beginning of the war, at its close the fruit of victory was declared to be not only the emancipation of the negro, but his complete enfranchisement as a citizen. The tri- umphant party which held in its grasp the destinies of the republic at once decreed that there should be no peace until that end was attained, and the states of the south reorganized upon the basis of negro suffrage. Great as he was, determined as he was, Mr. Lincoln, had he lived, could not have stayed the tide more than a moment-the task was beyond the power of any one man. As we now look back upon it all, terrible as it was, it is clear that it was best for the south that there should have been no delay, that she was not to be harried by a second conquest. The con- queror at once put the knife to the bottom of the wound; he at once sub- jected the conquered to the full force of his revolutionary theory; nothing was left for future experiment. With a heroism and a patience which were superb the south passed through the ordeal, and with that genius for governing inferior races which is the distinguishing trait of that English folk of which her people is a part, she has arisen triumph- ant, with her political power in the union rather increased than dimin- ished. The result is a peace which can never be broken so long as the north is faithful to the settlements made by the war as she has defined them in our state and national constitutions.

MILITARY HISTORY OF THE STATE.

CHAPTER II. MILITARY HISTORY OF THE STATE.

BY GEN. JOSEPH WHEELER, LAWRENCE CO.

EARLY WARS - DE SOTO - INDIAN - SPANISH - FRENCH - ENGLISH - AARON BURR - MASSACRES - JACKSON'S EXPLOITS - TREATIES - AD- MISSION TO THE UNION - MEXICO - THE CIVIL WAR - ALABAMA TROOPS IN THE WAR OF SECESSION - THE INFANTRY - THE CAVALRY - THE ARTILLERY - REVIEW OF THE CIVIL WAR IN ALABAMA.

HE MILITARY history of Alabama commenes with our first knowledge of that section of our country. Hernando de Soto, with about one thousand chosen men of the best blood of Spain and Portugal, reached the coast of Florida in May, 1539. He Imoved through Florida and Georgia by difficult and dangerous marches, often being surrounded by hostile tribes, and every- where confronted by a trackless wilderness. In one of their first conflicts with the natives, the Spaniards discovered one of their own countrymen who had long been kept prisoner by the Indians. This man, Jean Ortiz, was the only person left of Narvaez' ill-starred expedition of a few years before. He was immediately rescued and attached to the person of the commander, to whom he became invaluable as an interpreter.

De Soto found a delightful camping ground among the friendly and generous people of Chiaha, upon the spot where the city of Rome, Ga., now stands. After resting here for about thirty days and recruiting the strength of his weary men and their famous war-horses, he broke up his camp and proceeded further west. Seven days' slow march brought him to Alabama, which he entered July 2, 1540, at the Indian city of Costa, on the banks of the Coosa, in Cherokee county. Never before had the foot of the European trodden the soil of the state; and the natives looked with delight and astonishment upon the strangers who came into their land, not in the guise of weary mariners or foot-sore pilgrims, but as handsome, dashing cavaliers, in magnificent apparel and glittering armor, bestriding those strange and wonderful animals whose hoofs struck fire and whose nostrils seemed to breathe forth smoke and flames.

De Soto pitched his tent near the town of Costa, and, with eight of his guard, approached the chief, by whom he was received in a friendly

MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.

manner. Meanwhile, some of his foot-soldiers committed depredations which aroused the anger of the Indians, who fell upon them with clubs. De Soto. with great presence of mind, seized a cudgel and commenced beating his own men to appease the wrath of the natives, who instantly became pacified. He then artfully led the chieftain inside his lines and detained him as a hostage, as was his usual policy in order to extort provisions and slaves. Fifteen hundred savages, with angry shouts and yells surrounded his camp, but, by his coolness and the influence of an Indian interpreter, he soon overcame their resistance.

On the 26th of July, they came in sight of the town of Coosa, whose inhabitants, the most friendly and hospitable yet met with, received the fair-faced strangers with open arms. Their chief came forth to meet De Soto, riding upon a chair borne on the shoulders of his principal men. He was followed by a thousand dusky warriors, tall, sprightly and active, arrayed in gorgeous robes and feathers, chanting songs and playing upon flutes. The Indian prince is described as a young man twenty-six years of age, well formed, intelligent, with a face beautifully expressive and a heart honest and generous. He received De Soto with the most unsus- pecting kindness and generosity, offering him a spot anywhere in his dominions upon which to establish a colony. Yet in spite of this, the Spanish chieftain, with his usual craftiness, gained possession by strategy of the young chief and kept him about his person as a hostage to pre- serve peace and to extort whatever ransom he chose to demand. This policy gradually turned the hospitable Coosas into deadly enemies.

De Soto treated in the same manner the haughty and gigantic chief of the Mobilians. As the Spaniards drew near his dominions, Louis de Moscosa, the camp-master, was despatched with a small but brilliant escort, to inform the chief of their coming. Tuscaloosa was forty years of age, of extraordinary stature and immense limbs. He was handsome, but grave and impassive, never deigning to notice the Europeans except by contemptuous smiles. Being more impressed with their strength than he chose to admit, he unwillingly accompanied them to his capital city, Maubila, now Choctaw Bluff, Clarke county, meanwhile, as it afterward appeared, making secret arrangements for their destruction. The largest pack-horse in De Soto's train was selected for the use of the Indian chief, and even then his feet nearly trailed on the ground; but with haughty composure he rode beside the Spanish leader and occupied himself by sending couriers in advance to herald his coming. On this journey, the Spaniards being much troubled with a very painful disease arising from the want of salt, the Indians showed them how to cure it by mixing with their food the ashes of certain weeds.

Upon reaching Maubila, the chief and the Spanish escort entered the . city amid the sound of the music upon Indian flutes and the graceful dancing of beautiful girls, and the strangers were given commodious quar- ters: but De Soto, whose suspicions were already aroused, found there

MILITARY HISTORY OF THE STATE.

were about 10,000 armed men in the town with an abundance of military supplies, ready at any moment to attack his forces. The battle was pre- cipitated by a dispute between an Indian brave and a Spanish officer, Baltasar de Gallegos, who, with one sweep of his sword cleft his antag- onist in two. The savages poured upon the Spaniards like a swarm of angry bees. De Soto by desperate bravery succeeded in getting outside the gates, while the cavalry rushed to the rescue of their horses, which the enemy were trying to kill. For three long hours the conflict raged, the Indians in their desperation dropping down from the walls upon the invaders, and seizing in their naked hands the sweeping swords and piercing lances of the cavaliers. The natives used missiles of all kinds, and their deadly arrows were thrown with great skill; while in hand to hand conflicts they used enormous clubs and wooden cleavers. They fought almost entirely without armor, sometimes using wooden breast- plates, while the Spanish soldiers were protected by heavy steel armor.

By a series of desperate charges, De Soto drove his assailants within Maubila, closing after them their ponderous gates. As soon as the rear guard under Moscoso, who had imprudently loitered on the way, reached the spot, the Spaniards made a desperate assault and scaled the walls to rescue some of their men who had been shut up within the city since the beginning of the fight. Then followed a scene of the most horrible car- nage. All the inhabitants were slain except a handful who escaped by flight. Not one surrendered or asked for quarter; the women fought beside the men and shared in the indiscriminate slaughter, to which were added the horrors of fire.

In the final charge, De Soto was closely followed by the brave Nuno Tobar. Prodigies of valor and endurance are related of these cavaliers. The commander, while rising to cast his lance, received a winged arrow in his thigh. Unable to sit in his saddle. he fought the rest of the battle standing in his stirrups. This terrible conflict, one of the bloodiest in the annals of history, occupied nine hours. The Mobilians were completely crushed; some historians think that eleven thousand of them were killed that day. It was most disastrous, also, to the victors, who lost eighty- one of their men, many horses, provisions, clothing, and stores of every description. Among the killed were two nephews of the commander, Diego de Soto, and Don Carlos Enriquez, also Men-Rodriguez, a noble Portuguese. Every one of the survivors was covered with wounds; they were in the midst of a hostile wilderness, without provisions or medicines, reduced to the most pitiable condition; but the mercurial temperament of the soldiers and the indomitable will of their leader enabled them to over- come all these obstacles. It was a strange coincidence that this famous battle took place upon a spot not far distant from the site of Fort Mims, long afterward rendered famous by a somewhat similar tragedy.

It had been the intention of De Soto to proceed directly to Pensacola 7

MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.

bay, where Maldinado awated him with ships laden with provisions and stores of all descriptions; but learning that many of his followers had determined to forsake his fortunes and return to Spain or to Peru, he changed his plans, and to the surprise and chagrin of many. he turned deliberately toward the northwest in the middle of November. He threat- ened with death the first man who should even think of Maldinado and his ships. His course lay heneforward through a wilderness peopled not by hospitable friends, but by savage enemies, burning for revenge. After traversing the counties of Clarke, Marengo and Greene, they reached the Black Warrior, and after severe fighting with the Indians, who stubbornly resisted them, they crossed the river and proceeded through a portion of Greene and Pickens counties toward the Little Tombigbee, wintering amid great hardships in the vicinity of the modern Columbus, at an Indian village called Chickasa.

With the departure of De Soto from the soil of Alabama ends the first chapter of the military history of the state. The passage of the Spaniards had occupied nearly five months. They had been welcomed by the most generous and hospitable nation of North America, but their course was marked by cruelty and injustice; like. a whirlwind of fire and blood, they had left ruin and desolation behind then.

The next invaders of the soil were the Muscogees, a powerful tribe of Indians from northwestern Mexcio. After their conquest by Cortez and the death of Montezuma, these people, unwilling to submit to the sway of the European, emigrated to the northeast. Crossing the Red river and proceeding up through the Mississippi valley they drove before them the weaker and more peaceful tribes; but the account of their conquests exists only in vague legends preserved among their descendants. It was nearly a century and a half after the departure of De Soto before the foot of a European again trod the soil of Alabama.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century the French Canadians were very active in founding settlements along the Mississippi river and the gulf coast. La Salle took possession of the mouth of the Mississippi in April, 1682, but his attempts at colonization were not successful. The Spaniards settled at Pensacola in 1699, and laid claim to Mobile bay. Iberville and Bienville founded a colony on the Mississippi at Natchez, and in 1702 they built Fort St. Louis de la Mobile, at the mouth of the Dog river. They had already explored the islands in the vicinity. Dauphin island was first called the island of Massacre from the great quantity of human bones found there. The French made treaties of peace with the Alabamas and the Muscogees; and though they often endeavored to act as meditators between the hostile tribes, their early occupancy of the country was constantly disturbed by wars with the Indians. The Alabamas, incited by the English, made war upon the French, who were assisted by the Chickasaws and Choctaws, but these two tribes going to war with one another, the French were involved between them. France

MILITARY HISTORY OF THE STATE,

and Spain having united against England, Bienville, in 1707, went to the relief of Pensacola with one hundred and twenty Canadians, but the English and their Indian allies retired before his arrival.

In 1711, a permanent settlement was made on the site where Mobile now stands, and in the following year the province was given into the care of Crozat. Bienville succeeded in making advantageous treaties with the Indians, and in 1714 he sailed up the Alabama river with the inten- tion of establishing forts and trading posts. Passing the sites of Wash- ington and Montgomery, he erected Fort Toulouse at Tuskegee, now the town of Wetumpka. This fort contained four bastions, each mounted with two cannon, and was manned by a French garrison until 1763. Set- tlements at Montgomery and Jones' bluff were made later, the latter place being called Fort Tombecbee.

The peace between France and Spain being broken in 1719, Bienville attacked Pensacola, May 14, and captured the garrison, which he sent to Havana. Here they were armed by Matamora, the governor of Cuba, and sent back to recapture Pensacola. They landed thirty-five men on Dauphin island, and afterward bombarded Philippe, where they were repulsed by Serigny with one hundred and sixty soldiers and two hundred Indians. A French fleet arriving in the bay, Pensacola was again taken by the French and the perfidy of Governor Matamora punished; a Span- ish vessel loaded with provisions was captured in the bay, De Lisle was put in command, and a number of deserters were hung. The French .retained Pensacola until 1723, when it was restored to Spain by treaty, about which time the seat of government was removed from Mobile to New Orleans, when the former city lost something of its importance. In 1722, a mutiny broke out at Fort Toulouse and the garrison deserted after killing their commander.

In 1733, D'Artaguette and Bienville returned to Mobile, and it was about this time the French lost seventeen men in an attack upon a smug- gling vessel. The English from the Carolinas lost no opportunity of exciting trouble among the natives under the control of the French, and a serious war took place in 1736, in which the Choctaws were allied with the French and the Chickasaws with the English. The great battle of Ackia, May 26, 1736, resulted disastrously to the French under Bienville, who returned to Mobile, while part of his troops under D'Artaguette, being unable to rejoin him, were defeated, and taken prisoners. They were held for some time as hostages, and were finally massacred. The Chickasaws, against whom these expeditions were directed, were never conquered by armed force. They are described as the bravest of all the American Indians. They were again unsuccessfully attacked by De Vaud- reuil with his French troops and Choctaws in 1752. The remnant of the tribe, which was dwindling away before the advance of civilization, finally emigrated to Arkansas.

Alabama was occupied by the English in 1765. The partition line

100

MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.

dividing West Florida from the territory of Illinois was 32° 28', about the latitude of Demopolis, Ala., and Columbus, Ga. This division gave rise afterward to many contentions between the Spaniards, the Georgia settlers, and the federal government. The Spaniards claimed possession of West Florida by their treaty with England in 1783; and for many years. especially during the administration of Washington, there was an incessant border warfare. During this time the settlers were exposed to all kinds of perils and hardships from the Indians, who were incited to bloody deeds, sometimes by one party, sometimes by another. Congress established regulations respecting grants of land in the disputed territory in 1803, and the present boundaries of Alabama were clearly and definitely settled in 1817.

In north Alabama, the Creeks and Cherokees, incited by the French, who were carrying on a trade near the sites of the present cities of Tus- cumbia and Florence, continually made war upon the American settlers. Colonel James Robertson led a successful expedition in 1787 from the Cumberland region, which produced a short respite from the attacks of the Indians. The latter soon rallied, however, when the war was resumed by Captain Shannon with a band of intrepid Americans, who soon restored safety to the vicinity.

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Memorial record of Alabama. A concise account of the state's political, military, professional and industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people. Volume I, Part 11

Author: Taylor, Hannis, 1851-1922; Wheeler, Joseph, 1836-1906; Clark, Willis G; Clark, Thomas Harvey; Herbert, Hilary Abner, 1834-1919; Cochran, Jerome, 1831-1896; Screws, William Wallace; Brant & Fuller Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Madison, Wis., Brant & Fuller Number of Pages: 1164

Author: Taylor, Hannis, 1851-1922; Wheeler, Joseph, 1836-1906; Clark, Willis G; Clark, Thomas Harvey; Herbert, Hilary Abner, 1834-1919; Cochran, Jerome, 1831-1896; Screws, William Wallace; Brant & Fuller
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Madison, Wis., Brant & Fuller
Number of Pages: 1164