made known to Jackson, who went upon the ground in the full expectation of losing his life. At the word, Dickinson fired, and the dust flew from Jackson's clothes; Jackson then fired, and Dickinson fell. He was carried into a neighbouring house, where he soon expired. Jackson mounted his horse and travelled twenty miles with his friend and surgeon: the blood oozing through his clothes then first discovered to the latter. that the general was wounded. Two of his ribs were shattered near their articulation with the breast-bone, and it was some time before he could attend to business. None on the ground knew that he was wounded except himself, yet the unfeeling conduct of his antagonist before the meeting had so exasperated his fearless spirit, that he said to a friend who was astonished at his self-command, “Sir, I should have killed him if he had shot me through the brain."*

Every effort to preserve honourable peace between Great Britain and America having failed, Congress declared war, June 12th, 1812. Under the authority of an act directing the president to accept the services of fifty thousand volunteers, Jackson issued an address to the citizens of his division, which brought twenty-five hundred of them around his standard. Their services were tendered to the government and accepted, and General Jackson received the thanks of the president and the governor of the state for his zeal in the public service. In November, he received orders to place himself at the head of fifteen hundred infantry and riflemen, and descend the Mississippi to aid General Wilkinson in defending the lower country, then supposed to be in danger. With the greatest firmness the troops rendezvoused at Nashville, and advanced towards the place of their destination. It was in the latter part of December; the ground was covered with snow, and the weather was excessively severe; yet such was the eagerness for service, that two thousand and seventy men presented themselves, nearly

all armed and equipped at their own expense. All of them were taken with him, lest their ardour should be damped by sending any of them to their homes; and Jackson, in a general order published at Nashville, promised to be a father to the whole of them. The army marched through the ice and snow to Natchez, where General Jackson was instructed to remain until he received further orders. Meanwhile, the prospect of immediate war in that quarter had disappeared, and an order was issued by the secretary of war, directing General Jackson to dismiss the troops under his command from service, and to take measures for delivering every article of the public property in his possession to General Wilkinson. When this order reached his camp, there were one hundred and fifty men on the sick list, fifty-six of whom were unable to raise their heads. Besides, none of the troops were possessed of sufficient funds to pay their way home. Along with the general order, came a letter from General Wilkinson, who feared an intention on the part of Jackson to supersede him in the command. In his epistle, Wilkinson informed General Jackson that he might still perform a very acceptable service by encouraging the recruiting service among the soldiers under his command. There have not been wanting those, who, dispassionately examining the connection between the orders of the secretary and the letters of Wilkinson, have supposed the apprehensions of the latter, in regard to precedence in rank, to furnish the key to the action of the government.

To comply with the order of the secretary, the general would have been obliged to leave his sick without medicines or tents, and to discharge the remainder, in a strange country, where they would probably be forced into the regular service, or fall victims to vice and disease. He remembered the promise which he had given to his troops in Nashville, and he determined to obey the order only so far as it accorded with that promise. A recruiting officer was found near his encampment: he threatened him with a drumming out of the camp unless he departed

The general then issued an order to the troops, informing them of his determination not to abandon them, but to lead them all back to their country and their friends. His kind conduct animated the whole body, and almost all the sick became so much better, that the detachment was in better health on its return to Nashville than it had been when it set out.

Though he had felt hurt at the treatment which he had received from the secretary, yet his indignation against Hull was so great, that he wrote to Washington on his way home, offering to increase the force under his command, and to continue his march to Malden.

This offer was not accepted, but the secretary attempted to explain away the imputation of injustice to the Tennessee volunteers, and the government sanctioned the conduct of the general, and relieved him from the pecuniary responsibilities which he had incurred for his troops.

The Creek Indians, who had been induced to join the great Indian confederacy, organized by Tecumseh and his brother, the Shawnee Prophet, commenced hostilities against the western settlements in the early part of the year 1812. The outrages they committed attracted the attention of the general government, and the governor of Tennessee was directed to detail a body of the militia of his state, to be in readiness for active service. The first attack of real war was made by the Indians on Fort Mims, situated in the Tensaw settlement, in the territory of Mississippi. The fort contained one hundred and fifty men, under Major Beasley, with as many more members of families who had sought safety there. Of the whole number, but seventeen escaped from the indiscriminate slaughter to bring intelligence of the outrage to other parts of the country. The people of Tennessee prepared to take up arms for the purpose of avenging this outrage, and General Jackson advised that a large force should be immediately marched into the heart of the Creek country. Four thousand of the militia were called out by the legislature.

On the 7th of October, General Jackson took command of the troops at Fayetteville. There he received an express from Colonel Coffee, informing him that the Creek chiefs were marching with the main body of their warriors towards the frontiers of Tennessee. Apprehensive of failure on the part of the contractors to supply provisions for the West Tennessee troops under his command, he had requested Generals Cocke and White, who commanded those from the eastern part of the state, to send breadstuffs to his army by the Tennessee river. But when he reached that stream, on the 12th of October, no supplies from above had been received. He waited there for it a week, employed in disciplining his army, which somewhat exceeded two thousand men. A friendly chief of the Creek tribe had erected a fort for his own defence, which was threatened with destruction by the advancing enemy, and he therefore sent to Jackson for assistance. The general marched on the 19th with hardly a week’s provisions on hand, for Thompson's Creek, determined to proceed to the Ten Islands, on the Coosa river, near which the enemy was concentrating.

Having, though almost destitute of food, reached the Coosa river, General Coffee was ordered to cross it on the 2d of November, and with five hundred mer of his brigade, attack and destroy the town of Tallushatchee. The hostile Creeks there collected hailed with joy the approach of their opponents. Mingling their savage yells and war-whoops with the noise of drums, they charged the advanced companies with an almost supernatural fury. But their onset was bravely received, and they were compelled to retreat, fighting until they got within their buildings, where an obstinate conflict ensued, the Indians resisting when unable to stand, and neither asking nor receiving quarter. One hundred and eighty-six were killed, and eightyfour women and children taken prisoners. General Coffee lost five killed and forty-one wounded. At the Ten Islands General Jackson established a post called Fort Strother, and sent an express requiring the troops from East Tennessee to march

forthwith to his assistance. A runner from Talladega, a fort of the friendly Indians, thirty miles distant, informed him that the enemy had encamped before it in great numbers, and would certainly destroy it unless he afforded immediate assistance. He despatched a messenger to General White, ordering him to reach Fort Strother in the course of the ensuing night, and protect it in his absence. Leaving there the sick and wounded, he marched instantly for Talladega. He found the enemy posted within a quarter of a mile of the fort, apparently in great force. The action was as warm as it was short. In fifteen minutes the Indians were seen fleeing in every direction, but the fight was maintained with spirit and effect as well after the flight as before. The pursuit terminated when the enemy gained the mountains, three miles distant. Nearly eleven hundred Indians were engaged in this action: two hundred and ninety-nine were left dead on the ground, and many were probably killed in the flight and not found. Almost all of them were wounded, and many afterwards died.

Meanwhile, Jackson had learned that in compliance with an order from General Cocke, the East Tennessee troops under White had marched to Chataugan Creek, leaving the feeble garrison at Fort Strother unprotected. Added to this, the want of provisions prevented him from following up his victory, compelling him to retire while the enemy recovered from their consternation, and reassembled their forces. When he reached the fort, he found that no provisions had been forwarded since his departure, and even his private stores, on which he and his staff had hitherto subsisted, had been exhausted by the wounded and sick. The only support afforded to the army was a scanty supply of indifferent beef, taken from the enemy, or purchased from the Cherokees. Suffering as much from hunger as his men, General Jackson repaired to the bullock-pen, and there selected from the offal what he was pleased to call a very comfortable repast. Another example of patience and suffering was afforded to his murmuring soldiers by the patriotic general dur