Creek wars, and Cherokee wars, come in for their share, and a very large share too. The Creeks were a large nation compared with the Seminoles, or Florida Indians. They probably numbered as many thousands as the Seminoles did hundreds, and the amount of force brought out against the former under General Scott and General Jesup may have been in proportion. Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee came forth as if a crusade were on foot. Their militia flooded the field, and its services have all been paid for out of these "twenty millions."

It was the same with the Cherokees. They, too, were a strong nation, probably as strong as the Creeks. It was not open hostilities with them, for they never lifted the tomahawk, nor withstood emigration "to the knife." Remonstrance, protestation, and reluctance in every form but that of hostile resistance, evinced their unwillingness to go, and something like determination to stay. In this case, the government, taught by experience, resolved that prevention should anticipate the necessity of cure, and sent a force into the Cherokee country, that seemed to fill all its hills and valleys with the sounds of warlike readiness. Again were Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee on the ground. "To your tents" was the cry in all the borders, and it was answered by as many thousands as had closed around the Creeks. Fortunately, more pacific councils prevailed among the Indians in the one case than in the other. The Cherokees at last emigrated in peace, though not without costing the United States a vast sum. Feeding and paying these crowds of militia, through many months, was at a heavy cost, all of which has heretofore, in common parlance, been set down to the "Florida War."

The Quartermaster-general has appended to his report, in the document we are now reviewing, a statement which shows, in a sufficiently plain manner, the influence this union of wars had in augmenting appropriations, and how much cheaper the Seminoles were managed single-handed, than when conjoined with their more numerous brethren, the Creeks and Cherokees. For instance, he states, that the appropriation, on account of the quartermaster's department in 1836, for the Seminole, Creek, and Cherokee wars," was $1,680,470.28; in 1837, for the same triple purpose, $3,362,306.46; in 1838, for the Seminole and Cherokee VOL. LIV. NO. 114.

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wars, $3,967,774-04; in 1839, when the Seminoles alone remained, $1,455,998.81; and in 1840, for the same single purpose, $1,107,927 63. This statement enables us to form a pretty satisfactory idea of the proportion of this amount which the Seminole or "Florida" war could rightly be made to bear. It would not seem out of the way to assign to the Creeks and to the Cherokees, who were thousands, while the Seminoles were only hundreds, one third part each of the expenditures for the three years 1836, 1837, and 1838, during which we were at a constant cost of treasure, if not also of blood, on their account. Under this rule, so favorable to the larger nations, out of the nine millions and upwards which were expended in that time by the quatermaster's department on account of "preventing and suppressing hostilities" with these three nations, rather more than six millions would be assignable to the Creek and Cherokee wars, and must be deducted from the "Florida war."

If it be asked, why we should thus endeavour to establish this discrimination, we answer, for the credit of the nation. If these six millions, which we assign to the Creek and Cherokee wars, were really expended on those accounts, there was something like an adequate occasion. When it became settled that those large and formidable tribes were to be removed, a most important object was to be attained, an object requiring much management and preparation, and involving much hazard. The hazard with respect to the Creeks was soon unequivocal. They opposed force to force, and a most serious, prolonged, and onerous war, in which the millions actually spent might have been doubled many times, was prevented only by an energetic and prompt application of the abundant levies which the contiguous States, as we have before remarked, threw into the field. There were thousands of Creeks transferred, as captives, from the land to which they so tenaciously clung, to remote regions, that wore to them, at that time, a most repulsive aspect. Nothing but the dark clouds of menace that lowered over them on every side, induced them thus early to give up the contest. We do not count the cost which produced this result as having been disproportioned to the object in view, and this expenditure may therefore be regarded as having been prudently and properly applied. In these remarks, of course,

we are not expressing any opinion as to the policy which led to these removals. With that we have now nothing to do.

The same observations are mainly applicable to the Cherokee difficulty, for it did not become a war. This calamity, however, was averted only by much wisdom and forbearance, joined to every proper precaution as to means of enforcement in case of necessity. This tribe was in many respects even more formidable than the Creek tribe. It was more civilized, and consequently more capable, in case of war, of using its numbers to advantage. Fortunately, a more prudent policy prevailed, a policy which was the joint result of an enlightened, benevolent, and conciliating conduct on the part of the officers, who acted in the affair as agents of the United States, and on the part of those who governed the Cherokees, of tempered feelings, allowing the full exercise of discretion and judgment, where both were so likely to be overpowered by a thousand unpropitious recollections. In the last season of the negotiation, when the tribes were to go forth from their beautiful hills and valleys and streams (and truly beautiful they are), there was scarcely a day, or an hour, in which some unlucky step, some imprudent manifestation, on either side, might not have filled all those scenes with war in its worst forms. There was one man, the intelligent and shrewd chief of the Cherokees, who could at any moment have produced such a change; but he was led to use his unbounded influence for good, rather than for evil, to his nation, by faithful and eloquent representations, on the part of the officer in command, of the stern and inflexible necessity which left that nation no alternative but to emigrate. The millions, therefore, which were expended in producing this happy result, were well applied. The fruit had all the value of the price paid for it. Indeed, had this price been seven times seven, we had almost said seventy times seven, - greater than it proved to be, better had it been paid, than that the land, in such a cause, should have been dyed with Cherokee blood, mingled with our own.

But we turn again to the Florida war in its singleness, separated from these two other wars, whose heavy expenditures have thus far, in public opinion, been regarded only as Florida expenditures. With this discrimination, however, enough will remain to overburden with its weight the real Florida war. The public has not often been led to look into

In the

the variety of means that has been used in this war. Creek, and also in the Cherokee instance, there were excellent reasons for resorting to the militia. They were at hand, could easily be subsisted, and presented the only expedient where such an amount of force was required. The regular army could not furnish that force, nor even a respectable proportion of it. But in Florida the case was different. This peninsula was remote from the settlements of contiguous States; was peculiarly difficult of access; and besides, all kinds of subsistence, whether for man or beast, were there to be had only by a resort to distant portions of the country. Florida was, therefore, the place for the regular army, and the regular army only, excepting, perhaps, volunteers from the peninsula itself, many of whom had been driven from their homes, and were destitute, and most of whom had an intimate knowledge of the territory, and could be employed usefully to the country and beneficially to themselves.

Had the war been confined to these means, that is, to the regular army and the local militia, the sum of its cost would have scarcely been felt by the treasury, as there would have been little addition to the ordinary demand for military purposes. It is true, the numbers accumulated in the Territory would have been far less, but it is altogether probable that the amount of achievement would not have been less. This was not expected, because it was thought that success would be in proportion to numbers; but such was not the result, nor was there just ground for expecting it. These numbers

were generally poured in without due regard to the subsistence they might meet at the scene of operations. Such was the case with the first band of gallant volunteers, amounting to a thousand or more, which precipitated itself into Florida from the Mississippi, at an imminent risk of being starved itself, and starving those whom it came to succour.

War cannot generally be carried on in a hurry. If the personnel outstrip the matériel, there is not only no gain, but almost inevitably a severe loss. When it was found that the amount of troops sent into Florida at the outset had been insufficient, as it undoubtedly was, the evil was not to be remedied by running into the other extreme. The regular force there was very soon increased to a respectable amount, and with that, in the main, all operations should have been carried on. Such a body of troops, it is now evident, would

not have concluded the war according to the impatient wishes of the government. Neither did all those masses of militia or volunteers, which at different times were sent into Florida, effect the object. The war, without these extraneous aids, would probably have been about where it is now, at least no further from its beginning, and as near to its end. But the expense would have been immeasurably different. The regular army would have cost no more in Florida than anywhere else. It is paid, fed, and clothed, wherever it is. In these respects there would have been no augmentation on account of the "Florida war.”

But Congress, in an evil hour, authorized the President to call out volunteers to an amount not to exceed ten thousand. The maximum was probably in the field, in different quarters, even before the public at large knew that the law had passed. So far as portions of this force were applied to the Creek or the Cherokee war, as we have before remarked, the service was beneficial. Here we should say the benefit stopped. From the document before us, we see that volunteers gallantly rushed into Florida from the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New York, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, and South Carolina. The report of the adjutantgeneral of the army, which forms a part of the document, states that more than fourteen thousand of these citizen soldiers left their homes, between the years 1836 and 1840, but mostly in the years 1836, 1837, and 1838, and subjected themselves to all the perils and privations of the Florida war, a very few of them for a term of twelve, more of them for a term of three, and about one half of them for a term of six months. They were all in the field long enough to convince them that a soldier's life in Florida had little of "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war"; that their sufferings, in such a contest, redounded little to their own fame, or the benefit of their country; that, however such campaigns might begin in hope, they were sure to end in disappointment. It is no derogation from the spirit and patriotism of these thousands of citizens, who thus, for a season, took to the tented field with a promptness and ardor that deserved better success, to entertain a belief that their services in the Florida war scarcely advanced it one step towards a termination. The inference from such a belief is, of course, that all the enormous expense which has attended these services, has