David Crockett: His Life and Adventures Part 8

The company then marched through the silent wilderness, a distance of about thirty miles east, to the Conecuh River. This stream, in its picturesque windings through a region where even the Indian seldom roved, flowed into the Scambia, the princ.i.p.al river which pours its floods, swollen by many tributaries, into Pensacola Bay. It was several miles above the point where the detachment struck the river that the Indian encampment, to which the two murdered men had alluded, was located. But the provisions of the party were exhausted. There was scarcely any game to be found. Major Russel did not deem it prudent to march to the attack of the encampment, until he had obtained a fresh supply of provisions. The main body of the army, which had remained in Florida, moving slowly about, without any very definite object, waiting for something to turn up was then upon the banks of the Scambia.

Colonel Blue was in command.

David Crockett was ordered to take a light birch canoe, and two men, one a friendly Creek Indian, and paddle down the stream about twenty miles to the main camp. Here he was to inform Colonel Blue of Major Russel's intention to ascend the Conecuh to attack the Creeks, and to request the Colonel immediately to dispatch some boats up the river with the needful supplies.

It was a romantic adventure descending in the darkness that wild and lonely stream, winding through the dense forest of wonderful exuberance of vegetation. In the early evening he set out. The night proved very dark. The river, swollen by recent rains, overflowed its banks and spread far and wide over the low bottoms. The river was extremely crooked, and it was with great difficulty that they could keep the channel. But the instinct of the Indian guide led them safely along, through overhanging boughs and forest glooms, until, a little before midnight, they reached the camp. There was no time to be lost. Major Russel was anxious to have the supplies that very night dispatched to him, lest the Indians should hear of their danger and should escape.

But Colonel Blue did not approve of the expedition. There was no evidence that the Indian encampment consisted of anything more than half a dozen wigwams, where a few inoffensive savages, with their wives and children, were eking out a half-starved existence by hunting, fis.h.i.+ng, and digging up roots from the forest. It did not seem wise to send an army of two hundred and sixteen men to carry desolation and woe to such humble homes. Crockett was ordered to return with this message to the Major. Military discipline, then and there, was not very rigid.

He hired another man to carry back the unwelcome answer in his place.

In the light canoe the three men rapidly ascended the sluggish stream.

Just as the sun was rising over the forest, they reached the camp of Major Russell. The detachment then immediately commenced its march down the River Scambia, and joined the main body at a point called Miller's Landing. Here learning that some fugitive Indians were on the eastern side of the stream, a mounted party was sent across, swimming their horses, and several Indians were hunted down and shot.

Soon after this, the whole party, numbering nearly twelve hundred in all, commenced a toilsome march of about two or three hundred miles across the State to the Chattahoochee River, which const.i.tutes the boundary-line between Southern Alabama and Georgia. Their route led through pathless wilds. No provisions, of any importance, could be found by the way. They therefore took with them rations for twenty-eight days. But their progress was far more slow and toilsome than they had antic.i.p.ated. Dense forests were to be threaded, where it was necessary for them to cut their way through almost tropical entanglement of vegetation. Deep and broad marshes were to be waded, where the horses sank almost to their saddle-girths. There were rivers to be crossed, which could only be forded by ascending the banks through weary leagues of wilderness.

Thus, when twenty-eight days had pa.s.sed, and their provisions were nearly expended, though they had for some time been put on short allowance, they found that they had accomplished but three-quarters of their journey. Actual starvation threatened them. But twice in nineteen days did Crockett Taste of any bread. Despondency spread its gloom over the half-famished army. Still they toiled along, almost hopeless, with tottering footsteps. War may have its excitements and its charms. But such a march as this, of woe-begone, emaciate, skeleton bands, is not to be counted as among war's pomps and glories.

One evening, in the deepening twilight, when they had been out thirty-four days, the Indian scouts, ever sent in advance, came into camp with the announcement, that at the distance of but a few hours'

march before them, the Chattahoochee River was to be found, with a large Indian village upon its banks. We know not what reason there was to suppose that the Indians inhabiting this remote village were hostile. But as the American officers decided immediately upon attacking them, we ought to suppose that they, on the ground, had sufficient reason to justify this course.

The army was immediately put in motion. The rifles were loaded and primed, and the flints carefully examined, that they might not fall into ambush unprepared. The sun was just rising as they cautiously approached the doomed village. There was a smooth green meadow a few rods in width on the western bank of the river, skirted by the boundless forest. The Indian wigwams and lodges, of varied structure, were cl.u.s.tered together on this treeless, gra.s.sy plain, in much picturesque beauty. The Indians had apparently not been apprised of the approach of the terrible tempest of war about to descend upon them.

Apparently, at that early hour, they were soundly asleep. Not a man, woman, or child was to be seen.

Silently, screened by thick woods, the army formed in line of battle.

The two hundred Indian warriors, rifle in hand and tomahawk at belt, stealthily took their position. The white men took theirs. At a given signal, the war-whoop burst from the lips of the savages, and the wild halloo of the backwoodsmen reverberated through the forest, as both parties rushed forward in the impetuous charge. "We were all so furious," writes Crockett, "that even the certainty of a pretty hard fight could not have restrained us."

But to the intense mortification of these valiant men, not a single living being was to be found as food for bullet or tomahawk. The huts were all deserted, and despoiled of every article of any value. There was not a skin, or an unpicked bone, or a kernel of corn left behind.

The Indians had watched the march of the foe, and, with their wives and little ones, had retired to regions where the famis.h.i.+ng army could not follow them.

CHAPTER VI.

The Camp and the Cabin.

Deplorable Condition of the Army.--Its wanderings.--Crockett's Benevolence.--Cruel Treatment of the Indians.--A Gleam of Good Luck.--The Joyful Feast.--Crockett's Trade with the Indian.--Visit to the Old Battlefield.--Bold Adventure of Crockett.--His Arrival Home.--Death of his Wife.--Second Marriage.--Restlessness.--Exploring Tour.--Wild Adventures.--Dangerous Sickness.--Removal to the West.--His New Home.

The army, far away in the wilds of Southern Alabama, on the banks of the almost unknown Chattahoochee, without provisions, and with leagues of unexplored wilderness around, found itself in truly a deplorable condition. The soldiers had hoped to find, in the Indian village, stores of beans and corn, and quant.i.ties of preserved game. In the impotence of their disappointment they applied the torch, and laid the little village in ashes.

A council was held, and it was deemed best to divide their forces.

Major Childs took one-half of the army and retraced their steps westward, directing their course toward Baton Rouge, where they hoped to find General Jackson with a portion of the army with which he was returning from New Orleans. The other division, under Major Russel, pressed forward, as rapidly as possible, nearly north, aiming for Fort Decatur, on the Tallapoosa River, where they expected to find shelter and provisions. Crockett accompanied Major Russel's party. Indian sagacity was now in great requisition. The friendly savages led the way through scenes of difficulty and entanglement where, but for their aid, the troops might all have perished. So great was the dest.i.tution of food that the soldiers were permitted to stray, almost at pleasure, on either side of the line of march. Happy was the man who could shoot a racc.o.o.n or a squirrel, or even the smallest bird. Implicit confidence was placed in the guidance of the friendly Indians, and the army followed in single file, along the narrow trail which the Indians trod before them.

Crockett, in this march, had acquired so much the confidence of the officers that he seems to have enjoyed quite unlimited license. He went where he pleased and did what he would. Almost invariably at night, keeping pace with the army, he would bring in some small game, a bird or a squirrel, and frequently several of these puny animals. It was a rule, when night came, for all the hunters to throw down what they had killed in one pile. This was then divided among the messes as equitably as possible.

One night, Crockett returned empty-handed. He had killed nothing, and he was very hungry. But there was a sick man in his mess, who was suffering far more than he. Crockett, with his invariable unselfishness and generosity, forgot his own hunger in his solicitude for his sick comrade. He went to the fire of Captain Cowen, who was commandant of the company to which Crockett belonged, and told him his story. Captain Cowen was broiling, for his supper, the gizzard of a turkey. He told Crockett that the turkey was all that had fallen to the share of his company that night, and that the bird had already been divided, in very small fragments, among the sick. There was nothing left for Crockett's friend.

On this march the army was divided into messes of eight or ten men, who cooked and ate their food together. This led Crockett to decide that he and his mess would separate themselves from the rest of the army, and make a small and independent band. The Indian scouts, well armed and very wary, took the lead. They kept several miles in advance of the main body of the troops, that they might give timely warning should they encounter any danger. Crockett and his mess kept close after them, following their trail, and leaving the army one or two miles behind.

One day the scouts came across nine Indians. We are not informed whether they were friends or enemies, whether they were hunters or warriors, whether they were men, women, or children, whether they were in their wigwams or wandering through the forest, whether they were all together or were found separately: we are simply told that they were all shot down. The circ.u.mstances of the case are such, that the probabilities are very strong that they were shot as a wolf or a bear would be shot, at sight, without asking any questions. The next day the scouts found a frail encampment where there were three Indians. They shot them all.

The sufferings of the army, as it toiled along through these vast realms of unknown rivers and forest glooms, and marshes and wide-spread, flower-bespangled prairies, became more and more severe.

Game was very scarce. For three days, Crockett's party killed barely enough to sustain life. He writes:

"At last we all began to get nearly ready to give up the ghost, and lie down and die, for we had no prospect of provision, and we knowed we couldn't go much farther without it."

While in this condition they came upon one of those wide and beautiful prairies which frequently embellish the landscape of the South and the West This plain was about six miles in width, smooth as a floor, and waving with tall gra.s.s and the most brilliantly colored flowers. It was bordered with a forest of luxuriant growth, but not a tree dotted its surface. They came upon a trail leading through the tall, thick gra.s.s.

Crockett's practised eye saw at once that it was not a trail made by human foot-steps, but the narrow path along which deer strolled and turkeys hobbled in their movement across the field from forest to forest.

Following this trail, they soon came to a creek of sluggish water. The lowlands on each side were waving with a rank growth of wild rye, presenting a very green and beautiful aspect. The men were all mounted, as indeed was nearly the whole army. By grazing and browsing, the horses, as they moved slowly along at a foot-pace, kept in comfortable flesh. This rye-field presented the most admirable pasturage for the horses. Crockett and his comrades dismounted, and turned the animals loose. There was no danger of their straying far in so fat a field.

Crockett and another man, Vanzant by name, leaving the horses to feed, pushed across the plain to the forest, in search of some food for themselves They wandered for some time, and found nothing. At length, Crockett espied a squirrel on the limb of a tall tree. He shot at the animal and wounded it but it succeeded in creeping into a small hole in the tree, thirty feet from the ground. There was not a limb for that distance to aid in climbing. Still the wants of the party were such that Crockett climbed the tree to get the squirrel, and felt that he had gained quite a treasure.

"I shouldn't relate such small matters," he writes, "only to show what lengths a hungry man will go to, to get something to eat."

Soon after, he killed two more squirrels. Just as he was reloading his gun, a large flock of fat turkeys rose from the marshy banks of the creek along which they were wandering, and flying but a short distance, relighted. Vanzant crept forward, and aiming at a large gobbler, fired, and brought him down. The flock immediately flew back to near the spot where Crockett stood. He levelled his rifle, took deliberate aim, and another fine turkey fell. The flock then disappeared.

The two hunters made the forest resound with shouts of triumph. They had two large, fat turkeys, which would be looked at wistfully upon any gourmand's table, and for side-dishes they had three squirrels. Thus they were prepared for truly a thanksgiving feast. Hastily they returned with their treasure, when they learned that the others of their party had found a bee-tree, that is, a tree where a swarm of bees had taken lodgment, and were laying in their winter stores. They cut down the tree with their hatchets, and obtained an ample supply of wild honey. They all felt that they had indeed fallen upon a vein of good luck.

It was but a short distance from the creek to the gigantic forest, rising sublimely in its luxuriance, with scarcely an enc.u.mbering shrub of undergrowth. They entered the edge of the forest, built a hot fire, roasted their game, and, while their horses were enjoying the richest of pasturage, they, with their keen appet.i.tes, enjoyed a more delicious feast than far-famed Delmonico ever provided for his epicurean guests.

The happy party, rejoicing in the present, and taking no thought for the morrow, spent the night in this camp of feasting. The next morning they were reluctant to leave such an inviting hunting-ground. Crockett and Vanzant again took to their rifles, and strolled into the forest in search of game. Soon they came across a fine buck, which seemed to have tarried behind to watch the foe, while the rest of the herd, of which he was protector, had taken to flight. The beautiful creature, with erect head and spreading antlers, gallantly stopping to investigate the danger to which his family was exposed, would have moved the sympathies of any one but a professed hunter. Crockett's bullet struck him, wounded him severely, and he limped away. Hotly the two hunters pursued. They came to a large tree which had been blown down, and was partly decayed. An immense grizzly bear crept growling from the hollow of this tree, and plunged into the forest. It was in vain to pursue him, without dogs to r.e.t.a.r.d his flight. They however soon overtook the wounded buck, and shot him. With this treasure of venison upon their shoulders, they had but just returned to their camp when the main body of the army came up. The game which Crockett had taken, and upon which they had feasted so abundantly, if divided among twelve hundred men, would not have afforded a mouthful apiece.

The army was in the most deplorable condition of weakness and hunger.

Ere long they reached the Coosa, and followed up its eastern bank.

About twenty miles above the spot where they struck the river there was a small military post, called Fort Decatur. They hoped to find some food there. And yet, in that remote, almost inaccessible station, they could hardly expect to meet with anything like a supply for twelve hundred half-famished men.

Upon reaching the river, Crockett took a canoe and paddled across. On the other sh.o.r.e he found an Indian. Instead of shooting him, he much more sensibly entered into relations of friendly trade with the savage.

The Indian had a little household in his solitary wigwam, and a small quant.i.ty of corn in store. Crockett wore a large hat. Taking it from his head, he offered the Indian a silver dollar if he would fill it with corn. But the little bit of silver, with enigmatical characters stamped upon it, was worth nothing to the Indian. He declined the offer. Speaking a little broken English, he inquired, "You got any powder? You got any bullets?" Crockett told him he had. He promptly replied, "Me will swap my corn for powder and bullets."

Eagerly the man gave a hatful of corn for ten bullets and ten charges of powder. He then offered another hatful at the same price. Crockett took off his hunting-s.h.i.+rt, tied it up so as to make a sort of bag, into which he poured his two hatfuls of corn. With this great treasure he joyfully paddled across the stream to rejoin his companions. It is pleasant to think that the poor Indian was not shot, that his wigwam was not burned over his head, and that he was left with means to provide his wife and children with many luxurious meals.

The army reached Fort Decatur. One single meal consumed all the provisions which the garrison could by any possibility spare. They had now entered upon a rough, hilly, broken country. The horses found but little food, and began to give out. About fifty miles farther up the Coosa River there was another military station, in the lonely wilds, called Fort William. Still starving, and with tottering horses, they toiled on. Parched corn, and but a scanty supply of that, was now almost their only subsistence.

They reached the fort. One ration of pork and one ration of flour were mercifully given them. It was all which could be spared. To remain where they were was certain starvation. Forty miles above them on the same stream was Fort Strother. Sadly they toiled along. The skeleton horses dropped beneath their riders, and were left, saddled and bridled, for the vultures and the wolves. On their route to Fort Strother they pa.s.sed directly by the ancient Indian fort of Talladega.

It will be remembered that a terrible battle had been fought here by General Jackson with the Indians, on the 7th of December, 1813. In the carnage of that b.l.o.o.d.y day nearly five hundred Indians fell. Those who escaped scattered far and wide. A few of them sought refuge in distant Florida.

The bodies of the slain were left unburied. Slowly the flesh disappeared from the bones, either devoured by wild beasts or decomposed by the action of the atmosphere. The field, as now visited, presented an appalling aspect. Crockett writes:

"We went through the old battle-ground, and it looked like a great gourd-patch. The skulls of the Indians who were killed, still lay scattered all about. Many of their frames were still perfect, as their bones had not separated."

As they were thus despairingly tottering along, they came across a narrow Indian trail, with fresh footmarks, indicating that moccasined Indians had recently pa.s.sed along. It shows how little they had cause to fear from the Indians, that Crockett, entirely alone, should have followed that trail, trusting that it would lead him to some Indian village, where he could hope to buy some more corn. He was not deceived in his expectation. After threading the narrow and winding path about five miles, he came to a cl.u.s.ter of Indian wigwams. Boldly he entered the little village, without apparently the slightest apprehension that he should meet with any unfriendly reception.

He was entirely at the mercy of the savages Even if he were murdered, it would never be known by whom. And if it were known, the starving army, miles away, pressing along in its flight, was in no condition to send a detachment to endeavor to avenge the deed. The savages received him as though he had been one of their own kith and kin, and readily exchanged corn with him, for powder and bullets. He then returned, but did not overtake the rest of the army until late in the night.

The next morning they were so fortunate as to encounter a detachment of United States troops on the march to Mobile. These troops, having just commenced their journey, were well supplied; and they liberally distributed their corn and provisions. Here Crockett found his youngest brother, who had enlisted for the campaign. There were also in the band many others of his old friends and neighbors. The succeeding day, the weary troops, much refreshed, reached a point on the River Coosa opposite Fort Strother, and crossing the stream, found there shelter and plenty of provisions.

We know not, and do not care to know, who was responsible for this military movement, which seems to us now as senseless as it was cruel and disastrous. But it is thus that poor humanity has ever gone blundering on, displaying but little wisdom in its affairs. Here Crockett had permission to visit his home, though he still owed the country a month of service. In his exceeding rude, unpolished style which pictures the man, he writes: