The Big Brother

The Big Brother.

by George Cary Eggleston.

CHAPTER I.

SINQUEFIELD.

In the quiet days of peace and security in which we live it is difficult to imagine such a time of excitement as that at which our story opens, in the summer of 1813. From the beginning of that year, the Creek Indians in Alabama and Mississippi had shown a decided disposition to become hostile. In addition to the usual incentives to war which always exist where the white settlements border closely upon Indian territory, there were several special causes operating to bring about a struggle at that time. We were already at war with the British, and British agents were very active in stirring up trouble on our frontiers, knowing that nothing would so surely weaken the Americans as a general outbreak of Indian hostilities. Tec.u.mseh, the great chief, had visited the Creeks, too, and had urged them to go on the war path, threatening them, in the event of their refusal, with the wrath of the Great Spirit. His appeals to their superst.i.tion were materially strengthened by the occurrence of an earthquake, which singularly enough, he had predicted, threatening that when he returned to his home he would stamp his foot and shake their houses down. Their own prophets, Francis and Singuista, had preached war, too, telling the Indians that their partial adoption of civilization, and their relations of friendship with the whites, were sorely displeasing to the Great Spirit, who would surely punish them if they did not immediately abandon the civilization and butcher the pale-faces. Francis predicted, also, that in the coming struggle no Indians would be killed, while the whites would be completely exterminated. All this was promised on condition that the Indians should become complete savages again, quitting all the habits of industry and thrift which they had been learning for some years past, and fighting mercilessly against all whites, sparing none.

All these things combined to bring on the war, and during the spring several raids were made by small bodies of the Indians, in which they were pretty severely punished by the whites. Finally a battle was fought at Burnt-corn, in July 1813, and this was the signal for the breaking out of the most terrible of all Indian wars,--the most terrible, because the savages engaged in it had learned from the whites how to fight, and because many of their chiefs were educated half-breeds, familiar with the country and with all the points of weakness on the part of the settlers. Stockade forts were built in various places, and in these the settlers took refuge, leaving their fields to grow as they might and their houses to be plundered and burned whenever the Indians should choose to visit them. The stockades were so built as to enclose several acres each, and strong block houses inside, furnished additional protection. Into these forts there came men, women, and children, from all parts of the country, each bringing as much food as possible, and each willing to lend a hand to the common defence and the common support.

On the 30th of August, the Indians attacked Fort Mims, one of the largest of the stockade stations, and after a desperate battle destroyed it, killing all but seventeen of the five hundred and fifty people who were living in it. The news of this terrible slaughter quickly spread over the country, and everybody knew now that a general war had begun, in which the Indians meant to destroy the whites utterly, not sparing even the youngest children.

Those who had remained on their farms now flocked in great numbers to the forts, and every effort was made to strengthen the defences at all points. The men, including all the boys who were large enough to point a gun and pull a trigger, were organized into companies and a.s.signed to port-holes, in order that each might know where to go to do his part of the fighting whenever the Indians should come. Even those of the women who knew how to shoot, insisted upon being provided with guns and a.s.signed to posts of duty. There was not only no use in flinching, but every one of them knew that whenever the fort should be attacked the only question to be decided was, "Shall we beat the savages off, or shall every man woman and child of us be butchered?" They could not run away, for there was nowhere to run, except into the hands of the merciless foe. The life of every one of them was involved in the defence of the forts, and each was, therefore, anxious to do all he could to make the defense a successful one. Their only hope was in desperate courage, and, being Americans, their courage was equal to the demand made upon it. It was not a civilized war, in which surrenders, and exchanges of prisoners, and treaties and flags of truce, or even neutrality offered any escape. It was a savage war, in which the Indians intended to kill all the whites, old and young, wherever they could find them. The people in the forts knew this, and they made their arrangements accordingly.

Now if the boys and girls who read this story will get their atlases and turn to the map of Alabama, they will find some points, the relative positions of which they must remember if they wish to understand fully the happenings with which we have to do. Just below the junction of the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, on the east side of the stream, they will find the little town of Tensaw, and Fort Mims stood very near that place. The peninsula formed by the two rivers above their junction is now Clarke County, and almost exactly in its centre stands the village of Grove Hill. A mile or two to the north-east stood Fort Sinquefield.

Fort White was several miles further west, and Fort Gla.s.s, afterwards called Fort Madison, stood fifteen miles south, at a point about three miles south of the present village of Suggsville. On the eastern side of the Alabama river is the town of Claiborne, and at a point about three miles below Claiborne the princ.i.p.al events of this story occurred. It will not hurt you, boys and girls, to learn a little accurate geography, by looking up these places before going on with the story, and if I were your schoolmaster, instead of your story teller, I should stop here to advise you always to look on the map for every town, river, lake, mountain or other geographical thing mentioned in any book or paper you read. I would advise you, too, if I were your schoolmaster, to add up all the figures given in books and newspapers, to see if the writers have made any mistakes; and it is a good plan too, to go at once to the dictionary when you meet a word you do not quite comprehend, or to the encyclopaedia or history, or whatever else is handy, whenever you read about anything and would like to know more about it. I say I should stop here to give you some such advice as this, if I were your schoolmaster.

As I am not, however, I must go on with my story instead.

Within a mile or two of Fort Sinquefield lived a gentleman named Hardwicke. He was a widower with three children. Sam, the oldest of the three, was nearly seventeen; Tommy was eleven, and a little girl of seven years, named Judith, but called Judie, was the other. Mr.

Hardwicke was a quiet, studious man, who had come to Alabama from Baltimore, not many years before, and since the death of his wife he had spent most of his time in his library, which was famous throughout the settlement on account of the wonderful number of books it contained.

There were hardly any schools in Alabama in those days, and Mr.

Hardwicke, being a man of education and considerable wealth, gave up almost the whole of his time to his children, teaching them in doors and out, and directing them in their reading. It was understood that Sam would be sent north to attend College the next year, and meantime he had become a voracious reader. He read all sorts of books, and as he remembered and applied the things he learned from them, it was a common saying in the country round about, that "Sam Hardwicke knows pretty nearly everything." Of course that was not true, but he knew a good deal more than most of the men in the country, and better than all, he knew how very much there was for him yet to learn. A boy has learned the very best lesson of his life when he knows that he really does not know much; it is a lesson some people never learn at all. But books were not the only things Sam Hardwicke was familiar with. He could ride the worst horses in the country and shoot a rifle almost as well as Tandy Walker himself, and Tandy, as every reader of history knows, was the most famous rifleman, as well as the best guide and most daring scout in the whole south-west. Sam had hunted, too, over almost every inch of country within twenty miles around, trudging alone sometimes for a week or a fortnight before returning, and in this way he had learned to know the distances, the directions, and the nature of the country lying between different places,--a knowledge worth gaining by anybody, and especially valuable to a boy who lived in a frontier settlement. He was strong of limb and active as he was strong, and his "book knowledge," as the neighbors called it, served him many a good turn in the woods, when he was beset by difficulties.

Sam"s father was one of the very last of the settlers to go into a fort.

He remained at home as long as he could, and went to Fort Sinquefield at last, only when warned by an Indian who for some reason liked him, that he and his children"s lives were in imminent danger. That was on the first of September, and when the Hardwicke family, black and white, were safely within the little fortress, there remained outside only two families, namely, those of Abner James and Ransom Kimball, who determined to remain one more night at Kimball"s house, two miles from Sinquefield. That very night the Indians, under Francis the prophet, burned the house, killing twelve of the inmates. Five others escaped, and one of them, Isham Kimball, who was then a boy of sixteen, afterwards became Clerk of Clarke County, where he was still living in 1857.

CHAPTER II.

THE STORMING OF SINQUEFIELD.

When the news of the ma.s.sacre at Kimball"s reached Fort Gla.s.s, a detachment of ten men was sent out to recover the bodies, which they brought to Fort Sinquefield for burial. The graves were dug in a little valley three or four hundred yards from the fort, and all the people went out to attend the funeral. The services had just come to an end when the cry of "Indians! Indians!" was raised, and a body of warriors, under the prophet Francis, dashed down from behind a hill, upon the defenceless people, whose guns were inside the fort. The first impulse of every one was to catch up the little children and hasten inside the gates, but it was manifestly too late. The Indians were already nearer the fort than they, and were running with all their might, brandishing their knives and tomahawks, and yelling like demons.

There seemed no way of escape. Sam Hardwicke took little Judie up in his arms, and, quick as thought calculated the chances of reaching the fort.

Clearly the only way in which he could possibly get there, was by leaving his little sister to her fate and running for his life. But Sam Hardwicke was not the sort of boy to do anything so cowardly as that.

Abandoning the thought of getting to the fort, he called to Tom to follow him, and with Judie in his arms, he ran into a neighboring thicket, where the three, with Joe, a black boy of twelve or thirteen years who had followed them, concealed themselves in the bushes. Whether they had been seen by the Indians or not, they had no way of knowing, but their only hope of safety now lay in absolute stillness. They crouched down together and kept silence.

"What"s we gwine to do here, I wonder," whispered the black boy. "Whar mus" we go, Mas Sam?"

Sam did not answer. He was too much absorbed in studying the situation to talk or even to listen. The Indians were coming down upon the white people from every side, and the only wonder was that Sam"s little party had managed to find a gap in their line big enough to escape through.

"Be patient, Joe," said little Judie, in the calmest voice possible.

"Brother Sam will take care of us. Give him time. He always does know what to do."

"Be still, Joe," said Sam. "If you talk that Indian"ll see us," pointing to one not thirty steps distant, though Joe had not yet seen him.

A terrified "ugh!" was all the reply Joe could make.

Meantime the situation of the fort people was terrible. Cut off from the gates and unarmed, there seemed to be nothing for them to do except to meet death as bravely and calmly as they could. A young man named Isaac Harden happened to be near the gates, however, on horseback, and accompanied by a pack of about sixty hounds. And this young man, whose name has barely crept into a corner of history, was both a hero and a military genius, and he did right then and there, a deed as brilliant and as heroic as any other in history. Seeing the perilous position of the fort people, he raised himself in his stirrups and waving his hat, charged the savages _with his pack of dogs_, whooping and yelling after the manner of a huntsman, and leading the fierce bloodhounds right into the ranks of the infuriated Indians. The dogs being trained to chase and seize any living thing upon which their master might set them, attacked the Indians furiously, Harden encouraging them and riding down group after group of the bewildered savages. Charging right and left with his dogs, he succeeded in putting the Indians for a time upon the defensive, thus giving the white people time to escape into the fort. When all were in except Sam"s party and a Mrs. Phillips who was killed, Harden began looking about him for a chance to secure his own safety. His impetuosity had carried him clear through the Indian ranks, and the savages, having beaten the dogs off, turned their attention to the young cavalier who had balked them in the very moment of their victory. They were between him and the gates, hundreds against one. His dogs were killed or scattered, and he saw at a glance that there was little hope for him.

The woods behind him were full of Indians, and so retreat was impossible. Turning his horse"s head towards the gates, he plunged spurs into his side, and with a pistol in each hand, dashed through the savage ranks, firing as he went. Blowing a blast upon his horn to recall those of his dogs which were still alive, he escaped on foot into the fort, just in time to let the gate shut in the face of the foremost Indian.

His horse, history tells us, was killed under him, and he had five bullet holes through his clothes, but his skin was unbroken.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAM"S PARTY.]

Francis and his followers were balked but not beaten. Retiring for a few minutes behind the hill, they rallied and came again to the a.s.sault, more furiously than ever. Their savage instincts were thoroughly aroused by the unexpected defeat they had sustained in the very moment of their victory, and they were determined now to take the fort at any cost.

Their plan of attack showed the skill of their leader, who was really a man of considerable ability in spite of his fanatical belief in his own prophetic gifts. He avoided both the errors usually committed by Indian leaders in storming fortified places. He refused, on the one hand, to let his men waste their powder and their time in desultory firing, and, on the other, he decided not to risk everything on the hazard of a single a.s.sault. His plan was to take the fort by storm, but the storming was to be done systematically. Dividing his force into two parts, he sent one to the attack, and held the other back in the hope that the first would gain a position so near the stockade as to make the a.s.sault of the second, led by himself, doubly sure of success. The plan was a good one, without doubt, and no man was better qualified than Francis to carry it out.

When the storming party came, the people in the fort were ready for it.

Counting out the women and children, their numbers were not large, but they were a brave and determined set of men and boys, who knew very well in what kind of a struggle they were engaged. They reserved their fire until the Indians were within thirty yards of the fort, and then delivered it as rapidly as they could, taking care to waste none of it by random or careless shooting. The fort consisted, as all the border fortifications did, of a simple stockade, inside of which was a block-house for the protection of the women and children, and designed also as a sort of "last ditch," in which a desperate resistance could be made, even after the fort had been carried. The stockade was made of the trunks of pine-trees set on end in the ground, close together, but pierced at intervals with port-holes, through which the men of the garrison could fire. Such a stockade afforded an excellent protection against the bullets and the arrows of the Indians, and gave its defenders a great advantage over the a.s.sailing force, which must, of course, be exposed to a galling fire from the men behind the barriers.

As the stockade was about fifteen feet high, climbing over it was almost wholly out of the question, and the only way to take the fort was to rush upon it with fence rails, stop up the port-holes immediately in front, and keep so close to the stockade as to escape the fire from points to the right and left, while engaged in cutting down the timber barrier. If the Indians could do this, their superior numbers would enable them to rush in through the opening thus made, and then the block-house would be the only refuge left to the white people. The block-house was a building made of very large timbers, hewed square, laid close upon each other and notched to an exact fit at the ends. It had but one entrance, and that was near the top. This could be reached only by a ladder, and should the Indians gain access to the fort, the whites would retire, fighting, to this building, and when all were in, the ladder would be drawn in after them. From the port-holes of the block-house a fierce fire could be delivered, and as the square timbers were not easily set on fire, a body of Indians must be very determined indeed, if they succeeded in taking or destroying a block-house. At Fort Mims, however, they had done so, burning the house over the heads of the inmates.

The reader will understand, from this description of the fort, how possible it was for the people within it to withstand a very determined attack, and to inflict heavy loss upon the savages, without suffering much in their turn. Francis"s men charged furiously upon the silent stockade, but were sent reeling back as soon as they had come near enough for the riflemen within to fire with absolute accuracy of aim.

Then the second body, under Francis himself, charged, but with no better success. A pause followed, and another charge was made just before nightfall.

This time some of the savages succeeded in reaching the stockade and stopping up some of the port-holes. They cut down a part of the pickets too, and had their friends charged again at once, the fort would undoubtedly have been carried. As it was, Francis saw fit to draw off his men, for the time at least, and retire beyond the hill. What was now to be done? The attack had been repulsed, but it might be renewed at any moment. The Indians had suffered considerably, while the casualties within the fort were limited to the loss of one man and one boy. But the obstinate determination of Francis was well known, and it was certain that he had not finally abandoned his purpose of taking the little fort.

He had already demonstrated his ability to carry the place, and it was, at the least, likely that he would come again within twenty-four hours, probably with a larger force, and should he do so, the little garrison was not in condition to repel his attack. To remain in the fort, therefore, was certain destruction; but the country was full of savages, and to attempt a march to Fort Gla.s.s, fifteen miles away, which was the nearest available place, the other forts being difficult to reach, was felt to be almost equally hazardous. A council was held, and it was finally determined that the perilous march to Fort Gla.s.s must be undertaken at all hazards. Accordingly, not long after nightfall the whole garrison, men, women and children, stealthily left the fort and silently crept away to the south.

Sam had seen the dog charge and the escape of the whites into the fort.

"What a fool I was!" he exclaimed, "not to stay where I was! We might have got in with the rest of them."

"Why can"t we go to de fort now, or leastways, as soon as de Injuns goes away?" asked Joe.

"They ain"t going away," said Sam. "They"re going to storm the fort,--look, they"re coming right here for a starting-point, and "ll be on top of us in a minute. Come!--don"t make any noise, but follow me.

Crawl on your hands and knees, and don"t raise your heads. Look out for sticks. If you break one, the Indians "ll hear it."

"Mas" Sam--dey"s Injuns ahead"n us an" a-comin right torge us too. Look dar!"

Sam looked, and saw a body of Indians just in front of him coming to reinforce the others. He and his friends were cut off between two bodies of savages.

"Lie down and be still," he whispered. "It"s all we can do--and I"m to blame for it all!"

CHAPTER III.

SAM"S LECTURE.

The people of the fort made no search for Sam and his companions; not because they cared nothing for them, but simply because they believed them certainly dead. Mr. Hardwicke, himself, had seen Sam start with little Judie towards the fort, before the dog charge was made, and as neither the boys nor Judie had ever reached the gates, he had no doubt whatever that his three children were slain, as was Mrs. Phillips, the only other person who had failed to get inside the stockade. Mr.

Hardwicke wished to go out in search of their bodies, but was overruled by his companions, who, knowing that the savages were still in the immediate vicinity, thought it simply a reckless and unnecessary risk, to go hunting for the bodies of their friends hundreds of yards away, and immediately in front of the place at which the Indians were last seen. The idea was abandoned, therefore, and the fort party marched away in the darkness of a cloudy night, towards Fort Gla.s.s. Leaving them to find their way if they can, let us return to Sam and his little band.

Seeing the Indians coming towards them, they lay down in the high weeds.