In the Southwest, however, the struggle between whites and Indians continued to rage, the latter being led by a half-breed Creek named Weathersford. The massacre of more than four hundred men, women and children by the Creeks at Fort Mimms, in what is now Alabama, aroused the frontiers to fury, and Andrew Jackson, already known as "Old Hickory," the idol of his troops and the terror of the feeble War Department, took the field at the head of twenty-five hundred men. He showed himself a master of forest warfare, and in the bloody battle of Horseshoe Bend he broke the strength of the Creeks forever. Weathersford sought the tent of his conqueror, and asked for mercy for his people--not for himself. Jackson, who could respect in others the courage with which he was so eminently endowed, granted generous terms to the vanquished, and Weathersford lived thereafter in harmony with the whites. The autumn of 1813 witnessed the subjection of the hostile Indian tribes from the Lakes to the Gulf. * * * The American navy continued to distinguish itself on the ocean as on the lakes, in heroic defeat as well as in signal victory. While Captain David Porter, in the Essex, swept British commerce and privateers from the Pacific, starting out with a frigate and starting home with a fleet, all taken by himself during a cruise unsurpassed for skill, daring and success, Master-Commandant William Henry Allen, of the American brig Argus, lost his life and his vessel in battle with the British brig Pelican. The defeat of the Argus is believed to have been caused by the use of defective powder, which had been taken from on board a prize, and which did not give the cannon shot force enough to do serious damage to the enemy. Allen's death was due to his remaining on deck to direct his men after he had been seriously wounded. He was one of the best officers in the navy. The defeat and capture of the British brig-of-war Boxer, fourteen guns, after a sharp engagement, by the American schooner Enterprise, sixteen guns, in some degree compensated for the loss of the Argus. Captain Samuel Blythe, of the Boxer, nailed his colors to the mast and was killed at the first broadside. Lieutenant William Burrows, of the Enterprise, was mortally wounded, but lived long enough to have the British commander's sword placed in his hands. The splendid cruise of the Essex ended most unfortunately at Valparaiso, where the frigate was attacked while in port by the British thirty-six-gun frigate Phoebe and eighteen-gun ship-sloop Cherub. The Essex was in a disabled condition. The British stood off beyond reach of the American's short guns, and kept up a terrific cannonade with their long guns, of which the two British vessels had thirty-eight and the Essex only six. Captain Porter held out for about two hours under these unequal conditions, while his men were slaughtered and his vessel cut to pieces--he himself being foremost in exposure and danger.