USA > Texas > Border fights & fighters; stories of the pioneers between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi and in the Texan republic > Part 11
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Two years after Byrd had withdrawn, William Camp- bell and · Alexander McKee, notorious renegades, with the infamous Simon Girty, whose name has been a hiss- ing and byword ever since he lived, led a formidable war party consisting of a few Canadians and four hundred Indians into Kentucky. The first place they attacked
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The Women of Bryan's Station 155
was Bryan's Station. Another place called Hoy's Sta- tion was menaced by a different party of Indians and express messengers had ridden to Bryan's Station to seek aid, which the settlers were ready to grant.
The American party was being made up to go to Hoy's Station early in the morning of the 16th of Au- gust, 1782, when as they approached the gate to ride out of it, a party of Indians was discovered on the edge of the woods in full view. The party was small in num- ber, comparatively speaking, yet its members exposed themselves, out of rifle range, of course, with such care- less indifference to consequences, or to a possible attack, as inevitably to suggest to the mind of Captain John Craig, who commanded the fort at the time, that they were desirous of attracting the attention of the garrison in the hope that their small numbers might induce the men of the station to leave the fort and pursue them.
Craig was an old Indian fighter who had been trained in Daniel Boone's own school. He was suspicious of any manœuvre of that kind. Checking the departure of the relief party, he called his brother and the principal men of the station into a council and they concluded at once that the demonstration in the front of the fort was a mere feint, that the Indians were anxious to be pur- sued and that the main attack would come from the other direction.
III. Ruse Against Ruse
The surmise was correct. With cunning adroitness Campbell had massed the main body of his forces in the woods back of the fort with strict instructions for them to remain concealed and not show themselves on any
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account until they heard the fire coming from the front of the station, which would convince them that their ruse had succeeded. Then they were to break from cover and rush for the back wall of the fort, which they sup- posed would be undefended, scale it, and have the little garrison at their mercy. It so happened that the spring, referred to above, from which the fort got its water sup- ply, lay within a short distance of the main body con- cealed in the thick woods which surrounded the clearing with the fort in the centre. The situation was perfectly plain to Craig and his men. They determined to meet ruse with ruse and if possible defeat the Indians at their own game.
Before they could do anything, however, they must have a supply of water. On that hot August day life in that stockade, especially when engaged in furious bat- tle would become unsupportable without water. Only the ordinary amount sufficient for the night had been brought in the day before. The receptacles were now empty. After swift deliberations the commandant turned to the women and children crowded around the officers, and explained the situation plainly to them. He pro- posed that the women, and children who were large enough to carry water, should go down to the spring with every vessel they could carry and bring back the water upon which their lives depended. He also ex- plained to them that the spring was probably covered by concealed masses of the enemy who were waiting for the success of the demonstration in front of the fort to begin the attack.
He said further, that it was the opinion of those in command, that if the women would go to the spring as they did under ordinary circumstances, as was their
The Women of Bryan's Station 157
custom every morning that is, the Indians would not molest them, not being desirous of breaking up the plan by which they hoped to take the fort and have every- thing at their mercy. The men in the fort would cover the women with their rifles so far as they could. It would be impossible for them to go and get water; as it was not the habit of the men to do that, the unusual proceeding would awaken the suspicions of the Indians and the men would be shot down and the fort and all its inmates would be at the mercy of the savages.
Every woman there was able to see the situation. The theory upon which they were proceeding might be all wrong. The Indians might be satisfied with the cer- tainty of capturing the women thus presented, and the women and children might be taken away under the very eyes of the helpless men. On the other hand, it was probable, though by no means certain, that Craig's reasoning was correct and that the Indians would not discover themselves and the women and children would be allowed to return unmolested. Still nobody could tell what the Indians would do and the situation was a terrible one. Capture at the very best meant death by torture. The women in the fort had not lived on the frontier in vain. They realized the dilemma instantly. A shudder of terror and apprehension went through the crowd. What would they do? They must have the water; the men could not get it, the women did!
Mrs. Jemima Suggett Johnson, the wife of an intrepid pioneer and the daughter and sister of others, instantly volunteered for the task. She was the mother of five little children and her husband happened to be away in Virginia at the time. Leaving her two little boys and her daughter Sally to look after the baby in his dug-out
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Border Fights and Fighters
cradle, she offered to go for the water. This baby was that Richard Mentor Johnson, who afterward became so celebrated at the battle of the Thames where Tecum- seh was killed, and who was subsequently Vice-President of the United States.
Taking her little daughter Betsy, aged ten, her eldest child, by the hand, the fearless woman headed a little band of twelve women and sixteen children, who had agreed to follow where she led; among them were the wives and children of the Craig brothers. The little ones carried wooden piggins, and the women noggins and buckets. The piggin was a small bucket with one upright stave for a handle-a large wooden dipper as it were-while the larger noggin had two upright staves for handles.
Carefully avoiding any suspicious demonstration of force on the part of his men, Captain Craig opened the gate and the women marched out. Chatting and laugh- ing in spite of the fact that they were nearly perishing from apprehension and terror, they tramped down the hill to the spring near the creek some sixty yards away, with as much coolness and indifference as they could muster. It was indeed a fearful moment for the women, and no wonder that some of the younger ones and the older children found it difficult to control their agitation; but the composed manner of those valiant and heroic matrons like Mrs. Johnson somewhat reassured the oth- ers and completely deluded the Indians. Probably the younger children did not realize their frightful danger and their unconsciousness helped to deceive the foes in ambush.
It took some time to fill the various receptacles from the small spring, but, by the direction of Mrs. Johnson,
" It was indeed a fearful moment for the women."
The Women of Bryan's Station 159
no one left the vicinity until all were ready to return. This little party then marched deliberately back to the fort as they had come. Not a shot was fired. The Ind- ians concealed within a stone's throw in the underbrush had looked at them with covetous eyes, but such was the unwonted discipline in which they were held that they refrained from betraying themselves, in the hope of afterward carrying out their stratagem. As they neared the gate some of the younger ones broke into a run crowding into the door of the stockade which never looked so hospitable as on that sunny summer morning, and some of the precious water was spilled, but most of of it was carried safe into the enclosure.
With what feelings of relief the fifty-odd men in the station saw their wives and children come back again can scarcely be imagined. Despatching two daring men on horseback to break through the besiegers and rouse the country, Craig immediately laid a trap for the Ind- ians. Selecting a small body he sent them out to the front of the fort to engage the Indians there, instructing them to make as much noise and confusion as possible. Then he posted the main body of his men at the loop- holes back of the fort, instructing them not to make a move, nor fire a gun, until he gave the order.
The ruse was completely successful. Deceived by the hullabaloo in front the Indians in the rear, imagining that their plan had succeeded, broke from cover and in- stantly dashed up to the stockade, shouting their war cries, and expecting an easy victory. What was their surprise to find it suddenly bristling with rifles as Craig and his men poured a steady withering fire into the mass crowded before them, fairly decimating them. They ran back instantly, and concealment being at an end, re-
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turned the fire ineffectually. Immediately thereafter from every side a furious fire from four hundred rifles burst upon the defenders. All day long the siege was maintained. Once in awhile a bullet ploughing through a crevice in the stockade struck down one of the brave garrison, but the casualties in the station were very few.
On the other hand, when an Indian exposed himself he was sure to be killed by a shot from some unerring rifle. One or two Indians climbed a tree seeking to command the fort therefrom, but they were quickly de- tected and shot before they had time to descend. At last they attempted to burn the fort by shooting flaming arrows up in the air to fall perpendicularly upon the buildings. The children, the little boys, that is, and some of the older girls, were lifted up on the inclined roofs, where they were safe from direct rifle fire, though in imminent danger of being pierced by the dropping arrows, with instructions to put out the fires as fast as the arrows kindled them, which they succeeded in doing. Meanwhile, the women were busy moulding bullets and loading rifles for the men, and many of them took their places on the walls and aided in the defence.
" The mothers of our forest land, Their bosoms pillowed men; And proud were they by such to stand In hammock, fort, or glen; To load the sure old rifle, To run the leaden ball, To watch a battling husband's place, And fill it should he fall."
Finding their efforts unavailing the Indians ravaged the surrounding country. They killed all the cattle be- longing to the pioneers, burned and destroyed the fields
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of grain, and turned the environment into a bloody desert. In the afternoon a succoring party from Boone's Station appeared, but without Boone, for he was absent at the time, and succeeded in entering the fort. The new-comers included some sixteen horsemen with thirty footmen from the Lexington Station.
The horsemen approached unobserved and deliberate- ly dashed through the Indian lines. The suddenness of their onset and the great cloud of dust raised by their horses disconcerted the Indians and they succeeded in breaking through without the loss of a single man, al- though they were shot at by numbers of savages.
The footmen, however, who were some distance away, hearing the noise of the horsemen's battle, disobeyed orders through friendly gallantry, and instead of endeav- oring to gain the fort turned aside with the intention of succoring the horsemen who had already rushed through. They found themselves in a corn-field, confronted by an overwhelming body of Indians, and incontinently ran.
Fortunately for the hunters these Indians had just dis- charged their pieces at the horsemen and there had not been time to reload. The rifles of the Kentuckians were still charged, and even the most implacable savage hesi- tated to attack a loaded rifle with a tomahawk.
Keeping the Indians back by threatening them, the footmen gave over the attempt to reach the fort and suc- ceeded, with the exception of six killed, in escaping, These Kentuckians did not fire until they had to, and every time they did they brought down a man. The Indians pursued them for some distance, but as Bryan's Station was their object the pursuit was soon abandoned. The fugitives scattered in every direction rousing the country.
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Border Fights and Fighters
Meanwhile the battle around the station still kept up. Toward evening, however, the Indians having sustained severe loss, and seeing no prospect of capturing the place, which was as stoutly defended as ever, reluctantly determined to raise the siege and withdraw. Before they did so Simon Girty resolved to try what he could effect with persuasion. Cautiously advancing toward the fort and taking cover behind a huge sycamore tree, he held a parley. Declaiming his name and position, he advised the garrison to surrender at once, promising immunity and kind treatment on the part of Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit. His faith was better than Girty's, but that of both of them amounted to nothing.
Girty told the garrison that the beleaguering force would be supplemented on the following day by artillery, and if the station did not immediately surrender it would receive the fate which had been meted out to Martin's and Ruddle's Stations. The address was listened to in gloomy silence. Everybody knew what had happened at those two stations, and small wonder that many a heart sank at the prospect.
There happened to be in the fort, however, a young man named Reynolds, a reckless dare-devil sort of a fel- low, who took upon himself without authority the an- swering of Girty. He told him that he knew perfectly well who he was, that he knew his character, also; that he had a little dog that was so utterly worthless that he had named him Simon Girty, because he could think of no other name so beautifully appropriate; that he didn't be- lieve they had any cannon, and that if they would just wait outside the fort until the next day they would have the whole of Kentucky upon them, and if they knew what they were about they would get away in short order !
The Women of Bryan's Station 163
Girty retired in great discomfiture, followed by the laughter of the Kentuckians, and greeted by the sneers of the Indians. It was a long and anxious night they spent in the fort thereafter, the defenders keeping on the alert for any demonstration, but in the morning the Ind- ians were gone. They had decamped as silently as they had approached, the siege was raised, the battle was over. They had taken Reynolds' advice.
All day eager settlers from every direction poured into the settlement, and in their hot desire to punish these Indians they sallied out soon after with an inade- quate force and, as we have seen, were badly defeated by Campbell and his allies at the disastrous battle of Blue Licks.
IV. The Story of the Morgans
One further romantic incident of the siege is worthy of mention. A man named Morgan had settled with his wife and child in a cabin outside the fort. When the Indians appeared, he concealed his wife in a recess be- neath the slab floor of his cabin, I surmise perhaps be- cause she was ill and it was impossible for her to escape. At any rate, thinking he had left her in a place of safety he took his baby in one hand, grasped his rifle in the other, and broke through the Indians and gained the forest.
Unfortunately the Indians burned the house, while he looked helplessly on from his place of concealment with his anguish intensified by his utter inability to do any- thing at all. The Indians discovered him after a time, and he had a desperate struggle to get away. He reached Lexington at last, left the baby there, and at once joined the relief party which fought the Indians in the corn-field.
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When the siege was raised the frantic man searching among the embers found the charred remains of a human body. Crazed by his loss he was among the first to cross the river and engage the Indians at the battle of Blue Licks. Recognizing a portion of his wife's cloth- ing worn by an Indian, he killed him in a hand-to-hand struggle, but he was shot and frightfully wounded. Re- taining strength enough to crawl away from the battle- field he concealed himself in the wood, lying down to die. There he was found by his wife, who had been taken prisoner and had escaped in the confusion of the battle. She dragged him into a further place of concealment, cared for him as best she could, and when the Indians departed after the battle she contrived to get him back to the fort in safety.
The bones he had found in the ashes of the cabin were those of a wounded Indian, who had crawled in there and died. The Indians had set fire to the house and the woman had been forced to discover herself. The sav- ages had not had time to torture her, and so the family was united once more.
The men, of course, conducted themselves heroically in the siege, but the honor of the defence which they were enabled to make certainly rests with those pioneer mothers and daughters of Kentucky. A monument around the spring, the tribute of the Daughters of the American Revolution, one of the few that have been erected to women, serves to commemorate their heroic self-sacrifice and valor, for it takes more courage to go to a spring and get water in the face of four hundred Indian rifles pointing at you from out of a dark wood, than it does to stand behind a wall and fight all day long.
PART IV THE FAR SOUTH
I The Massacre at Fort Mims
THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIMS
I. The Beginning of the Creek War
O N the evening of Tuesday, the 31st of August, 1813, a little canoe floated ashore near Fort Stoddardt, Alabama, a rude frontier stockade on the west bank of the Mobile River, some twenty-five miles above the city of that name. In the bottom of the canoe lay an exhausted, half-delirious negro woman, a slave, whose only name was Hester. She was suffering from a huge, ghastly bullet wound in her breast. Lifted by tender hands from the bloody canoe, in which she was prostrated, she was carried into the fort and questioned by the commander.
She told a tale of massacre and destruction which froze the blood of the listeners. She believed herself to be the sole survivor of the garrison, and the people who · had collected at Fort Mims, on Lake Tensaw, some twenty miles further up the river, just below the " cut- off," or the confluence of the Alabama and the Tombig- bee, which thereafter make the Mobile River. The story they heard from the lips of the wretched woman, who had managed, she knew not how, to conceal herself till night- fall in the cane brake and then escape in the boat in which they found her, was one of the most appalling recitals of savage fury that has ever been told in any of our Indian wars.
The great Tecumseh, in the previous year, had suc-
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ceeded in engaging the major portion of the powerful Creek nation in behalf of his Confederacy. The Creeks were the most notable of the southern Indians. For enterprise and valor, for progress in a rude sort of civili- zation, for the development of an organization which pos- sessed some of the properties of government, they were only to be compared with the Iroquois, or Six Nations, in the north.
Those who know the red man only through touch with the modern Indian of the plains are accustomed to sneer at the conception of him which is exploited, let us say, in Cooper's novels; but the Creeks and the Iroquois were very different from the modern Indian, and Coop- er's pictures, so far as these two peoples are concerned, do no violence to the facts. The Creeks were, however, as ruthlessly cruel and bloodthirsty in warfare as, for in- stance, Geronimo and his Mescalero Apaches. The men were tall, magnificent specimens, and some of the women are said to have been beautiful; I think, however, that could only be by comparison with other Indian squaws. The Creek Nation numbered some thirty thousand, of whom at least seven thousand were approved warriors. Among them were many half-breeds, who inclined either to civilization or savagery, as the case might be, and exhibited the traits of the white man or those of the Indian, according to their rearing and environment.
There was a division in the tribe as to joining the conspiracy of Tecumseh, and the smouldering embers of a civil war were beginning to glow among them, when the War of 1812 broke out. Such an auxiliary for the British to work with, in conjunction with the Spanish authorities in Florida, was not to be despised. Supplied with English guns and incited by British rewards offered
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The Massacre at Fort Mims
for scalps, even of women and children, the great body of Creeks declared for war, although some remained friendly to the Americans. The half-breeds, or men of mixed blood, were divided between the two sides. The principal war chief of the Indians was a half-breed named Weatherford, who was called in the Creek lan- guage, " The Red Warrior."
After a skirmish at a place called Burnt Corn, which resulted in the defeat of the settlers, the alarm spread all over Alabama and the frightened inhabitants, including those half-breeds who were, to all intents and purposes, Americans, gathered for protection in the little forts and stockades which dotted the country on every hand.
There had lived for many years in Alabama, near Lake Tensaw, a wealthy half-breed named Samuel Mims. His house was a large and substantial wooden structure of one story, with several outbuildings. It was situated some little distance from the water, on low, sandy ground surrounded by woods, marshes and swamps, which on the east were traversed by several ravines overgrown with cane brakes. The house was surrounded by a low stockade, made by driving parallel rows of open stakes at suitable intervals, the spaces between being filled with loosely piled fence-rails. At three and a half feet from the ground five hundred loop-holes were pierced. The stockade was seventy yards square and enclosed an acre of ground. On the southwest corner on a slight rise a block-house was begun but never completed. There were two large gates in the centre of the east and west faces. From the north and south faces projected small square enclosures called bastions, made of the same pickets.
Thither at once resorted all the inhabitants of the
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vicinage, and many small houses were built in the enclos- ure to shelter them. To them in the latter part of July, General Claiborne, the United States military com- mander of the territory, sent one hundred and seventy- five volunteers, commanded by Major Daniel Beasley,
1 Blockhouse.
2 Pickets cut away by Indians.
3 Guard's Station.
4 Guard House.
5 Western Gate.
6 Gate cut though by Indians.
7. Capt. Bailey's House.
8 Stradham's House.
9. Dyer's House.
10.Kitchen.
11 Mim's House .
11 .
12 Randon's House.
13 01d Gateway Open.
14 Ensign Chambliss Tent. 15 Randon's
16 Capt. Middleton's
20
17 Capt. Jack's
T
18 Portholes taken by Indians. 19-20 . .. -
SIFIE
21 Capt Jack's Company . 22 Maj. Beasley's Cabin.
23 Capt. Middleton's Company.
24 Eastern Gate Left Open, and where Beasley fell.
S
Plan of Fort Mims.
with Captains Jack, Middleton, and Batcheldor. Major Beasley found a lieutenant and sixteen soldiers in the fort and some seventy other men who were organized into a battalion, and one Dixon Bailey was elected their captain.
Most of the soldiers were full-blooded whites, al-
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The Massacre at Fort Mims
though some of the settlers were of mixed blood. Bailey himself was a half-breed. There were nearly six hun- dred people in the enclosure now, which was too small to contain so great a number with comfort or safety, and Beasley erected a second stockade some sixty feet beyond the east wall with which it was connected on either side, forming an outer enclosure, in which he stationed the bulk of his troops.
II. Careless Defenders
General Claiborne visited the place soon after and charged the defenders straitly to complete the block- house and strengthen the palisades. At first they worked heartily enough, and kept a fairly vigilant watch, but so many false alarms were brought to them that they grew careless and indifferent at last. Beasley was a poor com- mander, though a brave man. He presently allowed the work to languish. The block-house was never com- pleted, and latterly, except at night, they kept no watch. He also imprudently weakened his command by sending away small detachments to garrison other points.
The summer was very hot. Many of the people crowded together in that low, marshy ground became ill. On the 29th of August two negroes who had been herd- ing cattle came rushing back to the fort in terror, exclaim- ing that they had seen a large body of Indians. The fool- ish Beasley, declined to credit their tale, and, angry at the commotion and alarm their news had created, actually ordered them to be flogged!
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