Under these compulsory conditions, Weatherford fed afresh his hatred for the white race, recalling that which his uncle had instilled, and with all his being, he threw himself into the cause of the Indians, and became the most brilliant and the bitterest of Indian leaders. Since there was nothing left but acquiescence with the demands of the Indians, Weatherford gored himself to unquenchable hatred, and boldly took the field at the head of the hilarious and tawny braves. Summoning to his support all the resources for a fierce war, and calling to his aid every available warrior of the tribe, a thousand in number, he was ready for the march to the counties of the south. Already hostilities had broken out in the southern quarter of the state, and the initial victory of the Indians at the battle of Burnt Corn, gave vigor to his spirits, and led him utterly to repudiate the sentiments which he cherished when he left the homes of his brothers, only a few weeks before. At the head of as ferocious an army as ever trod the soil of any region, Weatherford repaired southward on a mission of utter extermination. Every day of the march sharpened his zest for the fray, as well as that of his fierce followers on the war path. He slid into the south as stealthily as possible, and on reaching the scene of impending hostility, found that the whites had betaken themselves into a strong stockade, which had been built about the residence of one of the settlers named Mims, which name was given to the fort. Together with his picked warriors, he stealthily inspected the fort unobserved, studied its weakness and its strength, and repaired to the deep forest to await the time to attack. He saw that to undertake to storm the strong barricade meant disaster to his army, and with genuine genius of generalship, he decided to await the favorable moment to strike the fatal blow. He hid his warriors in the deep woods, at a point sufficiently remote from the fort not to be detected, allowed no camp fires to blaze during the night, and no demonstration that would occasion alarm at the fort, while he would daily reconnoitre the situation, and watch how life went inside the stockade.