Seeing the flames, the infantry before the barrier of logs could no
longer be held in check. They begged of the general to permit them to
storm the Indian works, and Jackson, seeing their eagerness and not
desiring to dampen their spirits at this critical time, finally gave
the word.
With a rush, the white men, both regulars and militia, went at the log
wall. Paying no attention to the sleet of arrows and bullets, they
scaled it like monkeys. The first over was young Sam Houston; he had an
arrow through him almost at his first move; but this did not stop him.
With his clubbed rifle sweeping a path among the savages he shouted:
“Come on, boys. Strike hard, and the thing is done.”
Jack and Frank were at his heels; the infantry then came smashing down
upon the Creeks; and amid the blaze and smoke of the burning huts the
desperate contest was on. Rifle and pistol cracked, bows twanged, sword
and tomahawk rose and fell. At length the savages felt that they were
being worsted, but when they turned to run they saw that their way was
blocked. Again they faced their foe and battled like cornered wolves;
they did not ask for quarter and were given none. With the memory of
the slaughter at Fort Mims in their minds the whites struck vengefully.
By mid-afternoon the battle was over; the Americans had forty-five men
killed and about one hundred and fifty wounded. The Creeks had lost
eight hundred in killed, and three hundred were prisoners.
* * * * *
This was the last of the Creeks as a warlike nation; almost the entire
remainder of the tribe fled into Florida, where they were protected
by the Spanish flag. When General Jackson a little later marched upon
those villages which he knew were located upon the lower Tallapoosa, he
found them deserted.
“And now,” said Jack Davis, as he and Frank sat, their rifles laid
aside in the peace of the Davis farmhouse, “the war is over as far as
the Creeks are concerned; and I don’t think there will be much delay
about the rights to your father’s land.”
And this proved to be the case; for General Jackson, in his great
treaty with the Indians at Fort Jackson some time later, secured great
tracts of territory from the subdued savages in payment for the harm
which they had done. In this ceded land was the old grant held by Mr.
Lawrence, and as soon as his possessions could be removed from Virginia
to the border-land, he took possession of it.
Slowly the settlers took up the land all about; but the hunting grounds
remained as they had been for many years. And through the aisles of
the mighty forests, across the streams which wound like silver threads
among the trees, Jack Davis, with Frank Lawrence and the Cherokee
brave, Running Elk, often wandered with rifle and bow, stalking deer
and hunting bear and panther. Peace was upon all the border-land--a
peace which they knew would not have come for many years if it had not
been for the invincible resolution of Andrew Jackson.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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