Pa.?”
“A snake. Get yourself ready to move quickly. Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
Pa then tossed his hat over me toward the snake and said, “Now.”
When I had rolled clear, Pa shot the head off the rattler.
Later, when things had settled down a little, I said, “Pa, why did you throw your hat at the snake? Why didn’t you just shoot it?”
He said, “I didn’t throw it at the snake. I threw it beyond the snake. The rattler was coiled, had his head up, and was staring at you. When I threw the hat past the snake, he turned to stare at the hat. That’s just an old trick to freeze a snake in place. He would probably have stayed still, staring at that hat, for a half-hour if you hadn’t moved and I hadn’t shot him. If you had moved while he was staring at you, he might have struck. I didn’t shoot before you rolled over because I would have been shooting only an inch or so above you.”
Even as we were having a peaceful summer, trouble was still brewing between the white Americans and the blacks and Indians. There were continuing small raids by the Indians and free blacks and return raids by the whites. Also, many of the raids by whites were not return raids; they were raids to steal something. Food, slaves, and animals were stolen and carried off by both sides. Adding to the distrust of the Indians, General Gaines had decided that the Indians in Florida were holding a large number of runaway slaves. He sent a message to the Indians seeking permission to enter their lands and kill or capture the slaves. Gaines also charged the Indians with several murders and demanded they deliver the guilty parties to him for justice.
The Indians blamed the whites for the troubles, saying the whites sold them slaves and then claimed them back as runaways. Indian leaders Peter McCloud and Chief Kinuche sent the general a message that the Indians would kill, or drive out with force, anyone trespassing on their lands. Those particular Indians had been neutral up to that point so their announcement presented a new problem. Since those Indian tribes were thought to have almost three thousand fighters, counting runaway and free blacks, it was a serious threat. Though many blacks were then slaves to the Indians, the blacks fought on the Indians’ side to keep from having to return to their white masters.
General Gaines then announced that he would enter Spanish territory to gather all the slaves and return them to Georgia. Major D. E. Twiggs, the commander of Fort Scott, said about that time that he had been ordered by Neamathla not to cross the Flint River or his men would all be killed.
While this was going on, we were busy with our fall planting. Duties with these activities carried us on into the winter. Once the first cold spell hit, we set our trap lines and began tending them. Raccoon and fox hides, bringing ten to fifteen cents each, were valuable once the animals had acquired their winter coats.
While we were tending trap lines, General Gaines ordered Major Twiggs to attack Fowltown, the Indian village of which Neamathla was chief. Fowltown was located on American treaty land, about fifteen miles south of Fort Scott and the same distance north of Tallahassee, Florida. The Indians living there were trespassing. Twiggs carried out the attack in November with over 250 men. They only killed five Indians. The others escaped. Though the fighting had been going on for several years, that battle is considered by some to be the initial battle of the First Seminole War.
The Indians immediately set out to get revenge in any way they could. Some small parties raided farms and plantations in Georgia. Their most effective strategy in getting revenge was to line the banks of the Apalachicola River with warriors and shoot at passing boats. In addition to killing a number of Americans, this also caused the boat traffic to stop. Because its inhabitants depended on the boats for provisions, it was feared that Fort Scott would have to be abandoned.
The War Department then ordered General Andrew Jackson to raise an army and go to the relief of Fort Scott. Jackson gathered a few hundred volunteers and regular soldiers from Tennessee and Kentucky and marched his force toward Georgia.
On February 26, 1818, Jacob Hunter brought word that Andrew Jackson, with several hundred men, was en route from Tennessee to Fort Scott. Jacob was the same Sergeant Hunter who had served with Major Bailey.
Later, Pa called the family together and said, “Tomorrow, I. J. and I are leaving to help General Jackson in an attack on the Indians in west Florida. We might be gone for some time. I know you’ll be all right. Asa is fourteen now and George is eleven. Just like you,” he was looking at Ma, “they can shoot as good as most. Samuel knows how to load for you if necessary. If we put pressure on the hostiles there, it should be safe here.”
Turning to the boys, he said, “Asa, George, your ma’s going to have another baby in a few months. I don’t want her to have to do any heavy lifting. You boys know what to do without being told. I want you to start the plowing tomorrow, and start planting on March fifteenth. God willing, we’ll be back to help with the harvest before the end of May.”
There wasn’t any further discussion about it and Ma started gathering up some food for us to carry. Our guns and other things were always ready for instant use so we didn’t have anything to do but put some things on a packhorse and go. Riding northwest on our Spanish mares the next morning, and leading a packhorse, we planned to stop off at Jacob Hunter’s place and get him. Riding northwest would also take us around the Georgia side of the Okefenokee Swamp. That was the shortest way around it going west. Also, going south around the swamp would have taken us through Florida and we probably would have encountered Indians.
As we traveled, three other volunteers soon joined us. Further west we joined with another group of five, thus making eleven of us. Covering the 240 miles to Fort Scott in nine days, we arrived one day ahead of General Jackson and the thousand men he had gathered.
Jacob Hunter, having been a sergeant, and Pa, being a natural scout, organized us. It’s a good thing they did because as we approached the fort, they decided to hold everyone up in a small covered area and do some scouting. We soon found sign of Indians. Shortly thereafter we discovered a party of thirty Indians. Had we stumbled into them, some of us would have been goners. We were on the east side of the Flint River, as were the Indians. The fort was on the west side.
After watching them for a short time, Pa said, “They’re waiting for something. It might be for dark or it might be for others to join them.”
Arriving back where our fellow volunteers waited, Pa said, “We best go upriver for a mile or so and cross. There’s thirty Indians laying up on this side of the river and waiting for something.”
One mile upstream, we were almost all the way across the river when we came under fire from the riverbank behind us. There wasn’t much damage, the Indians were doing their shooting with short barrel muskets. They were almost out of range with those weapons. As soon as we were on the west side of the river, and under the cover of trees, we returned fire with our long rifles. It looked like we hit a couple of the hostiles and they withdrew. We then turned downriver and soon arrived at the fort. We had to have one animal and one man treated for superficial pellet wounds. The pellets were removed. The distance had been so great that the pellets from the muskets hardly penetrated.
The people at the fort were extremely short on food. Leading three pack animals laden with considerable corn and dry beans and most of a deer we had killed that day, we were warmly greeted by Major Twigg.
When Sergeant Hunter explained the cause of the shooting, which had been heard at the fort, Major Twigg said, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen men fight their way into a fort. We certainly are proud you’re here, though. We were about out of food. We can also use the additional
