The news made him forget his wounds and his feuds. Tennessee acted and placed her treasury and her sons at the service of the man who would lead them against the Indians. Jackson was in command, but Jackson was dead—so they said. But when a member of the committee of the Legislature came to his room and propped him up long enough to hear the committee’s report, and regrets that he was not able to take the field—“The devil in hell I can’t!” he shouted, as he got out of bed and began then and there his campaign against the Creeks. His proclamation followed. Propped up in bed, he wrote: “The horrid butcheries perpetrated on our defenseless fellow-citizens near Ft. Stoddard cannot fail to excite in every bosom a spirit of revenge.... It surely never would be said that the brave Tennesseeans wanted other inducements than patriotism and humanity to rush to the aid of our bleeding neighbors and friends and relatives.” October 4 was the day he designated for the troops to meet at Fayetteville, Tenn., and on October 4 Jackson was there. A book might be written on Jackson’s Creek war. The Duke of Wellington said that if Jackson had done nothing else this war would have ranked him among the greatest generals. I cannot accept this as meant literally. But what a record of hardships, grit, perseverance, gameness, generalship, resourcefulness, agony of overcoming it is! Just one month from the day of his street duel in Nashville he rendezvoused his troops at Fayetteville. He could not mount his horse without help. He could not bear for a coat collar to touch his shattered shoulder. The least unguarded movement, and a thrill of agony went through his bloodless frame. We all remember the lives and years and treasure it took to subdue even the Sioux of the Northwest. Ask Crook and Miles and also poor Custer—soldiers all, equipped to a king’s taste and backed by the best army of Indian fighters the world ever saw—except one, and that one the smaller army that Jackson had to subdue in a twelve months the most powerful federation of the most intelligent Indians living. Jackson marched into their territory October, 1813. By April, 1814, they were killed or conquered, and those who remained, even their greatest chief, William Weatherford, were his friends and allies. [Illustration: Old oak near Fort Mims.]