The battle of Tallushatchee

On the second day of November, Jackson learned that a considerable force of the enemy was gathered at Tallushatchee, an Indian town about ten miles from the Ten Islands. He had no sooner received this information than he ordered Coffee with about nine hundred men to attack the post.

Coffee marched on the moment, taking with him a company of friendly Indians, mostly Cherokees, under Richard Brown. To prevent errors the Indians in the expedition wore white feathers and deer-tails on their heads.

The expedition crossed the river a few miles above the Ten Islands, and advanced during the night, arriving in the immediate neighborhood of the town about daybreak on the 3d of November. The purpose was not merely to defeat but to destroy the Indian force, and therefore, instead of dashing at once into the town, Coffee divided his force in half, sending Colonel Allcorn with the cavalry to the right, while he himself, in company with Colonel Cannon, marched to the left around the place, keeping at a sufficient distance to avoid alarming the Indians.

When the heads of the two columns met, the town was entirely surrounded. Notwithstanding the caution with which this movement was executed, the Indians discovered the presence of the enemy when the troops were half a mile distant. They beat their drums and yelled in savage fashion, but remained on the defensive, awaiting the attack.

About sunrise, every thing being in readiness, General Coffee sent two companies forward into the town, without breaking his circular alignment, instructing the officers in command of them to make an assault and bring on the action. The manoeuvre was altogether successful. As soon as the two companies made their attack, the Indians, confident that this was the whole of the assaulting column, rushed out of their houses and other hiding-places; and charged their assailants with great vigor. The companies of whites thereupon began falling back and the Creeks pursued them hotly. When the main line was reached, it delivered a volley into the midst of the advancing savages, and immediately charged them, driving them back in confusion to the shelter of their houses. Here the Creeks fought with the utmost desperation, refusing quarter, obstinately resisting when resistance was manifestly in vain, and choosing to die where they stood, rather than yield even to Coffee’s overwhelming numbers.

General Coffee said in his report of the affair:

“The enemy retreated, firing, until they got around and in their buildings, where they made all the resistance that an overpowered soldier could do. They fought as long as one existed; but their destruction was very soon completed. Our men rushed up to the doors of the houses, and in a few minutes killed the last warrior of them. The enemy fought with savage fury, and met death with all its horrors, without shrinking or complaining; not one asked to be spared, but [they] fought as long as they could stand or sit. In consequence of their flying to their houses and mixing with their families, our men, in killing the males, without intention killed and wounded a few of the squaws and children, which was regretted by every officer and soldier of the detachment, but which could not be avoided.”

Coffee counted one hundred and eighty-six dead bodies of Indians, and, as many of them fell in the grass and high weeds, where their bodies were not easily found, he expressed the opinion in his report that the number of killed did not fall short of two hundred, while his own loss was five men killed and forty-one wounded, most of the wounds being slight and none of them mortal. For the first time in the history of Indian warfare, the fighting force of the savages in this battle was utterly destroyed, not a single warrior escaping alive.

There were eighty-four prisoners taken, all of them being women and children. Not only General Coffee, but his officers and men also, would gladly have ended the fight as soon as victory was theirs, sparing the warriors who had survived the first onset, and they constantly offered quarter not only to bodies of men who were fighting together, but to single individuals who were manifestly at their mercy, and to wounded warriors; but their offers of mercy were indignantly rejected in every case, and they therefore had no choice but to convert the battle into a massacre more complete than that which had occurred at Fort Mims, except that the women and children were spared; but this time the butchery was forced upon the victors against their will, while at Fort Mims the triumphant savages had willingly indulged in indiscriminate slaughter.

Coffee at once took up his return march and rejoined Jackson, who sent a brief despatch reporting the affair to Governor Blount, praising Coffee and his men in the strongest terms, and ending with that plaintive plea for food for his army, which was now constantly on his lips. “If we had a sufficient supply of provisions,” he wrote, “we should in a very short time accomplish the object of the expedition.”

The most encouraging thing about this affair was the good conduct of the men. They manifested so little of the spirit of raw and undisciplined troops; they fought with so much coolness and steadiness, and went through the battle showing so few signs of that excitement which commonly impairs the efficiency of inexperienced soldiers, that their commander felt a confidence in them which justified him in attempting more than he would otherwise have dared in the circumstances.

Mr. Parton, in his Life of Andrew Jackson, preserves a story which grew out of this battle, and which so strongly illustrates the softer side of a stern soldier’s character, that we may be pardoned for breaking the narrative to copy it here.

“On the bloody field of Tallushatchee was found a slain mother still embracing her living infant. The child was brought into camp with the other prisoners, and Jackson, anxious to save it, endeavored to induce some of the Indian women to give it nourishment. ‘No,’ said they, ’all his relatives are dead; kill him too.’ This reply appealed to the heart of the general. He caused the child to be taken to his own hut, where among the few remaining stores was found a little brown sugar. This, mingled with water, served to keep the child alive until it could be sent to Huntsville, where it was nursed at Jackson’s expense until the end of the campaign, and then taken to the Hermitage. Mrs. Jackson received it cordially, and the boy grew up in the family, treated by the general and his kind wife as a son and a favorite. Lincoyer was the name given him by the general. He grew to be a finely formed and robust youth, and received the education usually given to the planters’ sons in the neighborhood. Yet it appears he remained an Indian to the last, delighting to roam the fields and woods, and decorate his hair and clothes with gay feathers, and given to strong yearnings for his native wilds.”

The boy did not live to reach manhood, however. In his seventeenth year he fell a victim to pulmonary consumption, and when he died his benefactor mourned him as bitterly as if he had been indeed his son.