Hillabee Massacre

It was a good thing for Jackson that he didn’t wait for reinforcements from General John Cocke, because they never would’ve arrived.

General James White, under Cocke’s command, marched toward Jackson’s army to reinforce him prior to the battle of  Talladega, till Cocke recalled him to rejoin his East Tennessee army. Likely, Cocke, jealous of Jackson, feared losing his independent command to that fiery general.

What soon followed as a consequence? Another massacre, but not by Indians this time but by General White’s men. Today it’s known as the Hillabee Massacre.

The Hillabee Creeks were ready to surrender to Andrew Jackson, but on November 18 things changed when Cocke’s men attacked a Hillabee village, killing 60 Creeks, not all of them warriors, and taking 250 prisoners. “Not a drop of Tennessee blood was spilt,” historian Albert J. Pickett wrote in his famous work, The History of Alabama. “The other Hillabee towns, viewing this as flagrant treachery on the part of Jackson, became the most relentless enemies of the Americans, and afterwards fought them with fiendish desperation.”[1]

Needless to say, this tragic event outraged Andrew Jackson.

The Canoe Fight

Another incident, though of no strategic importance, brought fame to its participants: Sam Dale, Jeremiah Austill, James Smith, and a free black man named Caesar. This incident occurred during raids by  General Claiborne’s militia when he assumed the offensive against the Red Sticks. On November 12, eighty militiamen under the command of Captain Sam Dale went on a scouting mission across the Alabama River. Dale, along with Jeremiah Austill, James Smith, and Caesar, were among the last to cross it.

However, as they crossed in a dugout, they spotted a canoe loaded with Indians so they gave chase and overtook the enemy. Shots were fired. While Caesar held the two boats together, a brief, fierce fight ensued— paddles, war clubs, knives, and bayonets swung and stabbed at each other. Two Indians dove overboard and escaped, eight were killed. This incident made Dale and his men legends in Alabama.  

---

[1] Pickett, Albert J. The History of Alabama. Republished by Birmingham Book & Magazine Co. of Birmingham, Alabama, 1962. Copyright 1878 by Mrs. Sarah S. Pickett.

An Example: The Declaration of Independence, First Paragraph

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Granted, Jefferson’s sentence is longer that those most twenty-first century authors write. It’s eighty-one words. Despite its length, though, every word is strong and counts toward clarity. The sentence length is just part of his literary style. That’s what being concise means: using strong words that make it easy for readers to understand a writer’s message. In other words—CLARITY.

Modern writers do well to abide by Jefferson’s sound advice. For tips on how to do this, visit my blog series, “Cut the Clutter.”

https://wordpress.com/post/theauthorscove.com/2248

https://wordpress.com/post/theauthorscove.com/2195

https://wordpress.com/post/theauthorscove.com/2248

https://wordpress.com/post/theauthorscove.com/2286

ANDREW JACKSON GETS INVOLVED

Credit: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1964

When word of the massacre reached Nashville, demands for vengeance spread throughout Tennessee. The month before, the federal government had authorized the governors of Tennessee and Georgia to raise troops to fight the Red Sticks, and the Nashville Courier used Fort Mims as a reason to “exterminate the Creek nation.” Soon, four armies took to the field.

Armies and Commanders

Andrew Jackson: West Tennessee // John Cocke:: East Tennessee

John Floyd: Georgia// Ferdinand Claiborne:   U.S. Army regulars & militiamen

Allies: Friendly Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees

Jackson Marches South

One of Jackson’s closest friends was John Coffee, in command of his cavalry. In October Colonel Coffee’s men rode to Huntsville, in north Alabama. A few days later, Major General Jackson and his militia joined him. They built two supply depots, one of them at the end of the fifty-mile road they cut in six days. Then Jackson continued his march south, determined to destroy every Red Stick village he encountered and cut a highway through their country clear down to Mobile.

For a time, his march stopped on the Coosa River, where he built Fort Strother. Upon learning of a nearby Red Stick town, Tallushatchee, he dispatched Coffee and their Cherokee allies to destroy it. To distinguish themselves from the Red Sticks, the Cherokees wore white feathers and deer tails on their heads. The future hero of the Alamo, Davy Crockett, also participated in this battle.

In the predawn hours of November 3, Coffee’s nine hundred troopers and the Cherokees advanced on Tallushatchee within a mile, and then surrounded it. Detachments of scouts were sent in to draw the Red Sticks out.

The Red Sticks took the bait and charged out of their village, where Coffee’s men caught them in a crossfire. Remembering this fight, Crockett reported that he and others chased forty-six warriors into a house. He wrote: “We shot them like dogs, and then set the house on fire, and burned it up with the forty-six warriors in it.”

Within a mere half hour, 186 Indians were killed, including women and children.

Coffee regretted the deaths of the women and their children, saying in his report that killing them had been an accident due to the warriors fleeing into their homes.

A few days later, Jackson received word from a friendly chief that Weatherford’s 1,000 warriors had surrounded, and was besieging, the village of Talladega some thirty miles from Fort Strother. To slip through Weatherford’s lines, the chief had disguised himself as a hog—put on hogskin, grunted, and walked on his hands and feet in the evening till he made it through the Red Sticks’ camps.

When Jackson learned of this threat to Talladega he, due to his sick and wounded which had depleted his force, first wanted to be reinforced by John Cocke’s men but then decided he couldn’t wait. So, while leaving a token force to guard Fort Strother, Jackson marched to Talladega’s rescue and defeated Weatherford in a decisive victory using Coffee’s tactics. Jackson’s men also captured a Spanish flag at Talladega–evidence of Spain’s alliance with England in supporting the Red Sticks, some seven hundred of whom escaped Jackson’s army. So, the fighting continued.

After this battle, Jackson spent the winter doing battle on a different front: the hunger his troops suffered, many of them now mutinous, and a massacre led by General Cocke’s men that made life ever more difficult for him.

Bibliography

Bunn, Mike and Clay Williams. Battle for the Southern Frontier: The Creek War and the War of 1812. First Printing. Charleston: The History Press, 2008.

Griffith, Benjamin W. Jr. McIntosh and Weatherford, Creek Indian Leaders, Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1988.

A Few Crutch Words

all

grin

begin

grin

have/had

heart

honestly

just

know

laugh

look

nod

see

smile

stomach

walk

smile

On August 29, 1813, two slaves owned by Josiah Fletcher were dispatched from Fort Mims to check on Samuel Mims’s cattle, but they weren’t gone long. They ran back to the fort and reported seeing Indians. However, when Major Beasley sent out a patrol to investigate, none were found. Consequently, he whipped one of the slaves for giving a false alarm.

The next morning, a similar thing happened. Fletcher’s slave, the one who’d been whipped, was sent out with another slave to check on the cattle. But instead, Fletcher’s slave went to nearby Fort Pierce, two miles southeast of Fort Mims and closer to Mobile. The other slave returned and said he’d seen Indians too.

Soon after this James Cornells, a métis, galloped into the fort alerting the garrison that the Creeks were on their way. Beasley, according to Cornells after the war, was drunk and said, “You saw red cows, man.”

At noon, Weatherford’s warriors attacked from the north, south, and east. They poured through the east gate, killing Beasley when he vainly tried shutting it. A militia company, guarding the gate, was wiped out.

Warriors from the northern sector rushed through the open west gate but encountered a locked inner gate. Upon capturing its guardhouse, they scaled the pickets and occupied the blockhouse.

From the south, warriors dominated the southern pickets’ rifle holes, felling one person after another.  

Along the northern sector, however, Captain Dixon Bailey, the garrison’s most competent officer, put up a stout defense. None of his pickets’ loopholes were captured, and his men were well-disciplined.

Then, suddenly, the Creeks retreated because some of their prophets, who’d boasted that no bullet could kill them, had indeed been killed. During this lull, Weatherford’s warriors conferred at a nearby house regarding their next move. In the meantime, Captain Bailey took command of the fort.

At the Red Stick conference, Weatherford advised against a renewed attack, but no one listened. So he and his slaves rode to his half-brother David Tate’s house not far from the tragic scene. He’d had enough of the fighting and bloodshed for the day. No one listened to him. Women and children had been killed. He knew what would come next. He hated it.

About an hour after their withdrawal, the Indians resumed their attack, slaughtering and scalping, and burning Mims’ house and surrounding buildings. When it was all over, 250 people inside the fort were killed and about 100 were captured.

A few defenders, however, managed to escape the carnage. Some went to Fort Stoddert. One of them, a slave named Hester, found a canoe on the Tensaw River. Despite being shot, she managed to row to the fort, the first person to bring news of the disaster.

This massacre led Andrew Jackson, up in Tennessee, to get involved. We’ll discuss his role in a later post.  

Sources

Bunn, Mike and Clay Williams. Battle for the Southern Frontier: The Creek War and the War of 1812. Fourth Printing. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2013.

Gregory A. Waselkov, “Fort Mims and Massacre,” updated January 11, 2018, Fort Mims Battle and Massacre | Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Waselkov, Gregory A. A Conquering Spirit: Fort Mims and the Redstick War of 1813-1814, Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2006.

Many writers tend to be introverted, but I don’t know if a person can say that about me. Well, maybe to a certain degree when I’m in strange crowds, but I reckon I’m actually somewhere between the two extremes. After all, I often got in trouble in school for being the class clown, even though nobody, especially teachers, thought I was funny.

As writers, however, we need to be willing to crawl out of our literary shells from time to time and get around people. Early in my career, I often visited shopping malls. There, I’d sit on a bench, observe and listen to shoppers. I’d even have a notebook with me on occasion and took notes. Some may consider this a waste of time. Even strange. It wasn’t. I was studying people – how they walked, how they talked, their body language, and their reactions to different situations. It came in handy later on when I began writing fiction.

How does studying people come in handy? Let’s look at one example. If we observe how a person gets angry, we can then use the way he/she demonstrated anger for one of our story’s angry characters. Not everyone yells when they’re angry, not everyone stomps their foot, and so on. Everyone is unique and thus, everyone shows his/her emotion in different ways. So, observation is one way we learn to improve our craft.

Listening is also important, especially for dialogue.  In addition to reading, study dialogue in movies and television. Movie scripts are, after all, primarily speech. Just as in novels, good dialogue is one of the hallmarks of a good movie or television show.

Of course, when we’re around people we can learn dialogue by engaging them in conversation. What are some unique expressions people use? Do they talk fast, speak slowly or use clipped sentences? Try to imitate these and other patterns in your characters’ dialogue. Also, observe peoples’ body language. Our stories will be all the better for it.

So take time to get out among the crowds. Take time to stop, look, and listen.