Life and select literary remains of Sam Houston of Texas/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
In 1813, while the war was progressing between the United States and Great Britain, he enlisted at Marysville, Tennessee, in the United States Army. Friends remonstrated against his becoming a common soldier, and when his resolution was carried into effect, considered him disgraced and unworthy of future notice. But he told them, "You don't know me now, but you shall hear of me." His mother consented, and stimulated him by encouraging words to aim at success by an honorable effort. It was not long before he became a sergeant; then the best drill officer in the regiment. He was first stationed at Fort Hampton, at the head of the Muscle Shoals, on the Tennessee River in Alabama. Here he was promoted to be an ensign, and afterward at Knoxville, aided in drilling and organizing the Eastern battalion of the 39th Regiment of Infantry. For some time he was encamped with his comrades at Ten Islands. Soon after, he took up the line of march to Fort William, where his regiment by the way of the Coosa River, proceeded to Tohopeka, or the horseshoe. For a long time an unsuccessful contest had been waged with the Creek Indians. Open warfare they avoided. They hoped to weary out their foes by "forest ambuscades and stealthy eruptions." In Gen. Andrew Jackson and his army, the enemy had to contend with foemen who excelled in military artifices, and who, with the daring courage of their natures nurtured in forest homes, were eager to enter the strife even at the cost of annihilating their Indian opponents. Encamped at Fort Williams, Gen. Jackson's army contained more than two thousand men; and through the forests, in every direction, his spies and scouts were scattered. Guided by their prophets, the Creek Indians had retreated from village to village and gathered the whole of their available force, the chosen warriors of the nation, one thousand strong, on a bend of the Tallapoosa River, well described by its name Tohopeka, or the horseshoe. Here they resolved to stand and risk their destiny on a single contest. The horseshoe bend is a peninsula, comprising about one hundred acres of land, which opened to the north. This opening was protected by a huge breastwork, constructed of three tiers of heavy pine logs, with two rows of skillfully arranged port-holes. This breastwork reached both sides of the river, across the peninsula.
On the 27th of March, 1813, Gen. Jackson arrived at the horseshoe bend, or Tohopeka. In a few hours, by a skillful arrangement of his forces, he had completely invested the peninsula and was prepared for action. Gen. Coffee, with all the friendly Indians serving under Gen. Jackson and a body of mounted men, crossed the Tallapoosa River, at a ford two miles below Tohopeka. By drawing up his lines on the south of the bend, at 10 o'clock he had cut off all escape from three sides of the peninsula. The main army advanced to the north side of the bend, the lines were drawn up for battle, and two pieces of artillery began to play upon the pine-log breastworks. From half-past ten to one o'clock, a brisk and apparently ineffectual firing was maintained, the massive timbers proving how harmless were the small cannon shot which were played upon them. The main body of the army had as yet no opportunity to show their valor. But soon from the southern part of the bend there appeared rolling up, a heavy column of smoke, and the sharp crack of a hundred rifles mingled with the rattle of musketry.
A line of canoes half concealed by the bushes on the opposite shore, were discovered by the Cherokees under Gen. Coffee. They swam the stream at once, and in a few minutes brought the canoes across. Richard Brown, the gallant Cherokee chief, followed by his brave warriors, jumped into the canoes, accompanied by Capt. Russell's companies of spies, and crossed the river. The cluster of wigwams near the shore was set on fire. The smoke arose over them, in whose volumes they advanced upon the rear of the thousand Creek warriors, who were sheltered by the breastworks from the artillery of Gen. Jackson's main army on the north.
As soon as the troops of the main army heard the firing and saw the smoke rolling up, they were eager to storm the Indian breastworks before them, as they knew that their companions had crossed the river. They were held steady to their lines, until Gen. Jackson had sent an interpreter to remove the several hundreds of women and children in the bend, to a place of safety beyond the river. Immediately on accomplishing this object, the order was given to storm the breastworks. With a shout the order was received. Col. Williams with the 39th Regiment, and Gen. Doherty's Brigade of East Tennesseeans, with loud cries dashed to the onset. A sanguinary struggle ensued. Bayonet met bayonet, muzzle touched muzzle at the port-holes. The first man, Major Montgomery, who sprang upon the breastworks received a ball in his head, and was hurled back. On the extreme right of the 31st Regiment, about the same time, ensign Houston scaled the breastworks, and called to his brave fellow-soldiers to follow him, as cutting his way he leaped down among the Indians. A barbed arrow struck deep into his thigh while he was scaling the breastworks or soon after he reached the ground. He maintained his position till his lieutenant and men were alongside of him, and the Creeks were recoiling under the terrible onset. After vainly trying to extract the arrow from his side, he called to his lieutenant to make the attempt. The officer failing after two attempts, Houston still holding command with sword uplifted over his head, told the officer to try again, and if he failed, he would smite him down. A desperate effort was made, the arrow was drawn forth, and a stream of blood rushed from the torn flesh. The young hero crossed the breastworks that his wounds might be dressed. The wound was bound up by the surgeon and the blood stanched. Gen. Jackson came to see who were wounded, and observing the young ensign among the number, firmly ordered him not to return to the contest. He begged the General to let him return to his men. The General gave him positive orders not to cross the breastworks again. Houston was determined to win a hero's name in that battle, or die in the contest. He had enlisted in the recruiting ranks, and marched through the streets of the village where his mother and friends resided. The finger of scorn had been pointed at him. To his scoffers he had said, " And what have your craven souls to say about the ranks? Go to with your stuff; I would much sooner honor the ranks than disgrace an appointment. You don't know me, but you shall hear of me." His mother did not desert him then, but handing her boy the musket, had said to him: "There, my son, take this musket and never disgrace it; for remember, I had rather all my sons should fill one honorable grave, than that one of them should turn his back to save his life. Go, and remember, too, that while the door of my cottage is open to brave men, it is eternally shut to cowards." All this young Sam Houston remembered, and dashing once more over the breastworks, he was soon again at the head of his men.
The battle raged fiercely. Over two thousand were contending hand-to-hand. The action was general. The yells of the Indian savages, and the groans of the dying rang throughout the peninsula, while arrows, spears, and balls flew, and swords and tomahawks gleamed in the sun. Some months before, all the villages of the Creek Indians had been visited by a brother of Tecumseh; he had stirred up the passions of these thousand chosen Creek warriors for blood and revenge, and had announced to the Indian prophets, that the Great Spirit had commanded him to go on this occasion; to assemble the "braves " of their nation in battle array against the "palefaces," and make one final struggle for the destruction of their foes. The mystery of this strange mission served to arouse the superstition and inflame the malignity of the nation. Although warriors by hundreds were falling, they still believed their prophets; who assured them that they would win the day and gain a victory over the palefaces. With a storm of wrath, they believed that the Great Spirit would sweep away their enemies, and that a cloud from heaven would be His signal. Even when the struggle was decided, while Gen. Jackson was issuing an order to cease from the carnage, while an interpreter was on his way to tell the Indians that their lives would be spared if they would surrender, a cloud suddenly spread over the sky. Believing this to be the signal promised by the prophets for their redemption, they fired upon the interpreter who delivered the message, and again began the action. A gentle shower of rain fell from the clouds, but deliverance did not come to the trusting brave savages. Tohopeka was covered with the dead and dying, hundreds fallen weltered in their gore; multitudes attempting to swim the river, were shot or drowned. Civilization reckoned the battle to be over; but civilization reckoned in vain. The old prophets gazed on the skies and stood firm; warriors, assured in their extremity that relief would at length come, clustered around them. When the last prophet and the last warrior at his side yielded their lives with an expiring groan, then only hope expired within them. Even then, the bloody work was not ended. Another work of slaughter and the victory of Andrew Jackson at Tohopeka would be complete.
Constructed over a ravine in the form of the roof, a house pierced with narrow port-holes was a part of the breastworks where a large party of Indians had secreted themselves. Hence, a murderous fire could be directed against their assailants whenever they should show themselves. In this place were assembled the last remnant of the Creek warriors of the Horseshoe bend. Cannon could not be brought to bear upon the place. Only a bold charge, which probably would cost the lives of the courageous men who should make it, could dislodge them from their position. These brave, desperate Indians had sealed their fate by rejecting with contempt the offer of life, on condition of their surrender. Gen. Jackson called for volunteers to make the charge. The lines, unmoved, stood silent. No order was given. No officer volunteered to lead on so hopeless a task. Houston waited in expectation that some captain would lead his company forward, but he waited in vain. He called to his platoon to follow him, as he rushed down the steep descent toward the covered ravine. His men hesitated. He seized a musket from one of them and with a desperation only incident to such occasions he led the way, ordering his soldiers to follow him. To charge through port-holes bristling with rifles and arrows was the only way of attack which could prevail. A rapid, simultaneous plunge could succeed. Stopping to rally his men, and levelling his musket within five yards of the port-holes, "he received two rifle balls in his right shoulder, and his arm fell shattered to his side." Disabled himself totally, turning he called once more to his men, and urged them to make the charge. They could not be induced to advance. There he stood till he saw that standing there in his own blood would do no good. Going then beyond the range of the bullets, exhausted, he sank to the ground. And not until the covered ravine was set on fire were the Indians dislodged from the final resort. The last rays of the setting sun shone on the ruins of the Creek nation. Volumes of dense smoke rose heavily over the bodies of painted warriors and the burning ruins of their log fortifications. Of the thousand brave warriors, the flowers of Indian chivalry, there were none to scowl on death and their assailants at Tohopeka.
Young Houston, then about twenty years old, displayed amid the perils of this hard-fought engagement such heroism as excited the admiration of the entire army. The wounds which he received remained unhealed to the day of his death. He was carried from the field of the dead and wounded, and placed in charge of the surgeon. As the surgeon said that he could not survive till the next morning, after extracting one ball, he made no effort to extract the other, as he thought it unnecessary to torture the suffering young hero. He spent a night of wretchedness with few, even, of the comforts of a soldier's knapsack. Little was done for him by his comrades, as they regarded him as a dying man, and thought that all they could do should be done for such only as were likely to live. The most brilliant day of his life was succeeded by its darkest night. Racked with the torturing pains of his many wounds, deserted in what he believed was his dying hour, stretched on the damp earth, the hours of that dreary night were an age to that young soldier. But these scenes of excitement and heroism were a part of his education. He was in training for the grand destiny which his young life presaged. He was under tuition for the leadership of that brave band of pioneers who through fierce struggles and sufferings triumphed in the peaceful enjoyment of a liberated Republic. The eye of Andrew Jackson was upon him, and the courage and daring exhibited on that bloody day at Tohopeka secured the life-long regard of the hero of New Orleans, warmly exhibited in the earnest sympathies which attended him through the fortunes of his life. Thirty years thereafter, about to pass from mortality to immortality, in the last months of his existence, Gen. Jackson, the hero of New Orleans, sent for Gen. Houston, the hero of San Jacinto, to see the victor at New Orleans become the victor over man's last enemy.
The day after the battle of Tohopeka the young officer was placed on a litter with others wounded, and started for Fort William, sixty or seventy miles distant. Neglected and exposed, suspended between life and death, he remained here for a considerable time. The other regular officers were all removed to Fort Jackson or the Hickory Ground. A part of the time he was cared for by Gen. Johnson, father of Cave Johnson, Postmaster-General under President Polk. Another part of the time he was taken care of by Col. Cheatham, and at length he was taken to the Ten Islands. Gen. Dougherty, who commanded the brigade from East Tennessee, conveyed him from the Ten Islands through the Cherokee Nation to his mother's house in Blount County, Tennessee, which he reached in the latter part of May, nearly two months after the battle of the Horseshoe Bend. This long journey was made on a litter borne on horses, while helpless and enduring excruciating agony. He was destitute of medical aid, had not the simplest remedies capable of alleviating his sufferings, and subsisting on the coarsest diet. Through forests, compelled to camp out, and often without any shelter, his toilsome journey was made to his mother's home. His recovery was expected by no one. So much like a skeleton was he that when he reached his mother's home she declared that she would not have recognized him as her son, except for his eyes, "which retained something of their wonted expression." Failing to recover strength at home with his mother, he repaired to Marysville for medical aid. His health continuing to decline at Marysville, he went to Knoxville, sixteen miles eastward. He was in so low a state that the physician to whom he applied refused to take charge of him, saying that he would live only a few days. But when, after a few days, the physician observed that he not only survived, but was somewhat improving, he offered his services. From this time he began slowly to recover, and when strong enough to ride on horseback he set out by short journeys for the city of Washington. Shortly after the burning of the Capitol he reached the seat of Government. Indignant because of the ruin wrought by the British army, he experienced bitter pangs of regret that his right arm should be disabled while a foe was prowling through the country. Suffering still from festering wounds, and as the winter advanced, he travelled to Lexington, Va., and remained till the early spring. Having sufficiently recuperated his strength to be able to do duty in some situations, he prepared again to cross the mountains. Reaching Knoxville, on his way to report himself for duty, he received the glorious news of the battle of New Orleans. Peace was soon proclaimed; he was placed near Knoxville at the cantonment of his regiment. After the army was reduced, his services as lieutenant were retained; and, attached to the first regiment of infantry, he was stationed at New Orleans. His voyage to New Orleans was commenced in a skiff on the Cumberland, with two young men, . one of whom afterward was distinguished as E. D. White, Governor of Louisiana. Passing down the Cumberland, smoothly gliding over the waters of the Ohio, they floated on the mighty waters of the Mississippi for many weary miles through a vast solitude. A Bible, Houston's mother's gift. Pope's translation of the Iliad, the same which had kept him company in his wild life among the Indians, Shakespeare, Akenside, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, and the Vicar of Wakefield were the travelling companions of that skiff's company, but they were the effective stimuli to the warm fancy of the young hero and his companions communing with those sublime wilds of nature. Turning a bend of the Mississippi, they saw what they supposed to be a vessel on fire, making headway on the stream without sails, and emitting heavy columns of smoke. It proved to be the first steamer which ever went up the Mississippi River. The party exchanged their narrow quarters on the skiff for the steamboat, and eight days thereafter Lieutenant Houston, reaching New Orleans, reported for duty. Here once more he had his wounds operated upon, and came near losing his life. After most completely shattering his right arm just below its juncture with the shoulder, the rifle-ball had passed around and lodged itself near the shoulderblade. His iron constitution, however, sufficed to endure an amount of suffering which few could have survived. Well-nigh did the last surgical operation come of depriving him of his remaining strength. But the indomitable will which sustained him triumphantly throughout all the struggles of a stormy life prevailed through all ills physical, mental, spiritual, and political.
In April of the following year, after a winter of great suffering, he sailed for New York, and spent there several weeks, with some slight improvement in his health. Passing through Washington city, he visited his friends in Tennessee, and then reported for duty to the Adjutant-General of the Southern Division, at Nashville, and was detailed on duty in the Adjutant's office, stationed at Nashville from the first of January, 1819. He was occupied in the office till the following November, when he was detailed on extra duty as a sub-agent among the Cherokees, to carry out the treaty just ratified with that nation. Notwithstanding his feeble health made it perilous for him to face the exposures incident to such an agency, still, as Gen. Jackson could procure no other person in whom he could repose such entire confidence, and as his life-long friend considered that the public service required that he should make the effort, Lieut. Houston yielded to the importunities of his commander, and entered upon the new duties with zeal, and performed them with eminent ability. Unfit for public service when he commenced this line of duties, and offered a furlough if he should decline the agency, he was successful beyond his own expectations. Conducting, however, a delegation of Indians to Washington during the same winter, arrived at the seat of Government he learned with amazement that efforts had been put forth to lower him in the estimation of the Government for "having prevented African negroes from being smuggled into the Western States from Florida," which at that time was a province of Spain. Friends of the smugglers then in Congress had circulated these reports. He appeared before President James Monroe, and the Secretary of War (Hon. John C. Calhoun), and vindicated himself, proving that he had only striven to secure respect for the laws of the country in all that he had done. Occupied most laboriously in his new and difficult mission, discharging its duties with marked ability, he was still suffering severely from the painful wounds which he had received in the service of his country. Gen. Jackson and all who understood the position and services of Houston thought that he should have received some warmer recognition for his great services and sacrifices for the State than the full and complete exculpation from blame which was freely accorded to him. Sensitive under a sense of slight, he resigned his first lieutenancy in the army at a period when his precarious health made it extremely doubtful in what way he was thereafter to obtain a livelihood. In accordance with the convictions of his life, and acting on the principles which always had governed and animated him, he threw up his commission in the army, returned with the delegation to the agency on the Hiwassee, and then resigned his commission as sub-agent among the Cherokee Indians, and went to Nashville to commence the reading necessary to practice law. Few young men had ever had such a preparatory drill in the hard service of life, beginning as Sam Houston. Of academies and colleges, of professors and libraries he had small acquaintance, but with wild human nature, with toil, struggle, weariness, hunger, pain, danger, and suffering he had been familiar from his early erratic boyhood up to the time when he bade farewell to the army of the United States, and determined to qualify for the honorable duties of a lawyer.
MEMORANDUM FOUND AT WAR DEPARTMENT.
"Sam Houston entered 7th infantry as a Sergeant; became ensign in 39th infantry 29th July, 1813; was severely wounded in battle of Horse Bend under Maj. Gen. Jackson 27th March; made Third Lieut. Dec, 1813; promoted as Second Lieut, in May, 1814; retained May 15th in 1st infantry; became First Lieut. Mar. 1st, 1818, resigned May 17th."