Black Creek. Paul Varnes
for provisions, it was feared that Fort Scott would have to be abandoned.
The War Department then ordered General Andrew Jackson to raise an army and go to the relief of Fort Scott. Jackson gathered a few hundred volunteers and regular soldiers from Tennessee and Kentucky and marched his force toward Georgia.
On February 26, 1818, Jacob Hunter brought word that Andrew Jackson, with several hundred men, was en route from Tennessee to Fort Scott. Jacob was the same Sergeant Hunter who had served with Major Bailey.
Later, Pa called the family together and said, “Tomorrow, I. J. and I are leaving to help General Jackson in an attack on the Indians in west Florida. We might be gone for some time. I know you’ll be all right. Asa is fourteen now and George is eleven. Just like you,” he was looking at Ma, “they can shoot as good as most. Samuel knows how to load for you if necessary. If we put pressure on the hostiles there, it should be safe here.”
Turning to the boys, he said, “Asa, George, your ma’s going to have another baby in a few months. I don’t want her to have to do any heavy lifting. You boys know what to do without being told. I want you to start the plowing tomorrow, and start planting on March fifteenth. God willing, we’ll be back to help with the harvest before the end of May.”
There wasn’t any further discussion about it and Ma started gathering up some food for us to carry. Our guns and other things were always ready for instant use so we didn’t have anything to do but put some things on a packhorse and go. Riding northwest on our Spanish mares the next morning, and leading a packhorse, we planned to stop off at Jacob Hunter’s place and get him. Riding northwest would also take us around the Georgia side of the Okefenokee Swamp. That was the shortest way around it going west. Also, going south around the swamp would have taken us through Florida and we probably would have encountered Indians.
As we traveled, three other volunteers soon joined us. Further west we joined with another group of five, thus making eleven of us. Covering the 240 miles to Fort Scott in nine days, we arrived one day ahead of General Jackson and the thousand men he had gathered.
Jacob Hunter, having been a sergeant, and Pa, being a natural scout, organized us. It’s a good thing they did because as we approached the fort, they decided to hold everyone up in a small covered area and do some scouting. We soon found sign of Indians. Shortly thereafter we discovered a party of thirty Indians. Had we stumbled into them, some of us would have been goners. We were on the east side of the Flint River, as were the Indians. The fort was on the west side.
After watching them for a short time, Pa said, “They’re waiting for something. It might be for dark or it might be for others to join them.”
Arriving back where our fellow volunteers waited, Pa said, “We best go upriver for a mile or so and cross. There’s thirty Indians laying up on this side of the river and waiting for something.”
One mile upstream, we were almost all the way across the river when we came under fire from the riverbank behind us. There wasn’t much damage, the Indians were doing their shooting with short barrel muskets. They were almost out of range with those weapons. As soon as we were on the west side of the river, and under the cover of trees, we returned fire with our long rifles. It looked like we hit a couple of the hostiles and they withdrew. We then turned downriver and soon arrived at the fort. We had to have one animal and one man treated for superficial pellet wounds. The pellets were removed. The distance had been so great that the pellets from the muskets hardly penetrated.
The people at the fort were extremely short on food. Leading three pack animals laden with considerable corn and dry beans and most of a deer we had killed that day, we were warmly greeted by Major Twigg.
When Sergeant Hunter explained the cause of the shooting, which had been heard at the fort, Major Twigg said, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen men fight their way into a fort. We certainly are proud you’re here, though. We were about out of food. We can also use the additional guns in case of an attack.”
An attack was not to come that night, however. The next day General Jackson and his men arrived. While they had seen sign, they had not encountered any hostiles. The Red Sticks had fled into the swamps before such a large force as Jackson had. Along with his white American troops, Jackson had several hundred Lower Creek Indians with him to fight against the Upper Creeks, or Red Sticks. Within days, several hundred additional Georgia militia also arrived.
From Fort Scott we moved down the Apalachicola River to the site of Negro Fort, which had been destroyed. Pa and I were asked to accompany the Lower Creeks of Jackson’s army. Sergeant Hunter and the other eight men were assigned to a unit with Jackson. Pa was one of the best trackers anywhere and was also able to speak some Muskogee—a language common to the Indians in the southeastern United States. I think the general wanted assurance that the Lower Creeks gave him correct information. The general need not have worried because the Lower and Upper Creeks were mortal enemies. On more than one occasion I witnessed the Lower Creeks with us flush two or three Upper Creeks from hiding and kill them.
Once at the site of the destroyed Negro Fort, General Jackson ordered his engineer to build a new fort. As more volunteers from Tennessee and Georgia and over a thousand more Lower Creek Indians arrived, Jackson’s army grew to 3,500 men. Fifteen hundred of them were Lower Creek Indians. William McIntosh, half Scot and half Indian, was the leader of the 1,500 Lower Creeks. In addition to being a chief, he was made a brigadier general by the United States government.
While most of General Jackson’s men worked on the fort, and waited at it for food to arrive by boat, McIntosh and our friendly Creeks crossed the Apalachicola and raided Red Stick camps and towns on the west side of the river. The Upper Creeks were called Red Sticks because they carried a red stick for religious purposes. That also made it easy to tell which tribe was which. Pa and I went with them on those raids. We killed or captured almost three hundred Red Sticks. The captives were mostly women and children. Our Creek friends kept most of the women and children. We also took a large supply of corn and other food from the Indian camps and towns. Corn was badly needed as food for man and horse.
Ever since Pa brought my Spanish mare home I had been teaching her tricks that I had seen other horses and riders do on occasion. She also did the normal things that most good saddle horses do. Using only foot and knee pressure, I could have her back up, go forward, turn, stop, or travel at any gait. I had also taught her to lift a hoof for me to look at without me holding it. She would bow on command while I was standing in front of her or while I was in the saddle. It was while I was in the saddle and having her bow that, by accident, I caused her to lie down the first time. While bowing, she would lower her head and lift her right front hoof and tuck it under her. It was while she was in that position one day that a wasp stung me on the left arm. A reflex jerk on the reins in my left hand caused her to tip over to the right and lie down on her right side. Kicking my right foot from the stirrup to keep it from being broken, I also slid forward on her neck and head to avoid possibly getting crushed by her body. There she was, lying on her side with me lying on her neck and head. I don’t know which of us was most surprised or frightened. In a few seconds she quieted down. Even after I got off of her neck, she remained quietly on the ground until I pulled on her reins to get her up. After a few minutes, I got up enough nerve to try it again. Though her fall was more controlled, she responded in the same way. From then on, I would cause her to lie down a couple of times each time we were riding alone. She soon got to where she was under full control as she went down. The mare seemed to like this new trick.
Not knowing what he would say about it, I never showed Pa that trick. It was while we were on one of those raids west of the Apalachicola River that he first saw it. In fact, it was performed in front of thirty of our Lower Creek Indian friends. While scouting, I was three hundred yards in front of, but still in visual contact with, Pa and our band of thirty Indians. I had dismounted and was leading my mare to give her a breather. That’s something we did for ten minutes of every hour to rest the horses. As I was going between two ponds thick with tall gallberry and palmetto bushes, I spotted a band of fifteen Red Stick Creek warriors. Because I was dismounted and because the gallberry and palmetto bushes were pretty tall, they hadn’t spotted me or my horse. They did, however, have an angle on