University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
The Bloody Volunteers arrive at the field of battle, and acquire
distinction under the command of Captain Dare.

This important business finished, and order restored,
we proceeded to despatch the dinner we had
interrupted, and soon after resumed the march, Captain
Dicky Dare riding in great state at the head of
his company; which, originally got up in the hurry
and enthusiasm of the moment, had never numbered
more than twenty-seven men, and was now reduced
to nineteen, including Captain Dare and myself.
But Captain Dare, before he reached the battle-field,
had, by dint of energy and eloquence, managed to
increase its numbers by the addition of some ten or
a dozen ambitious lads, whom he, at different times,
seduced to join his standard.

In truth, the Bloody Volunteers—for such was
the sounding name the company had assumed, even
at the starting—had sealed their own good fortune
in electing Dicky Dare their commander. His
courage and great experience in war—for the victory
at Craney Island was, in their apprehension, equivalent
to a whole life of battle—inspired them with a
fortitude akin to his own; while his heroic bearing
at their head, and especially his address in providing
supplies, and ministering to their wants on the road,
prodigiously increased his popularity.

The dinner on the road-side had pretty well exhausted
the rations laid in by the Bloody Volunteers;
who, forming a sort of guerilla or independent troop,
attached to no particular regiment of their district,
and acting without any authority, began to be doubtful,
as the supper hour drew nigh, in what manner,
and at whose expense, the needful provender was to
be obtained; and these doubts became the more distressing,
when an unpatriotic tavern-keeper on the
road-side, at whose house we sought refreshment,
swore, “he would be hanged if there was a man of us
should have supper, without paying for it.”

Captain Dare solved the difficulty in a moment,
by ordering a file of men into the pig-pen, where
they slew a pig and a dozen chickens, and then by
taking military possession of the kitchen, where the
spoils were prepared for supper. Another file was
despatched to the barn, to find quarters and provender
for our chargers.

In short, Captain Dare acted as if he knew what
he was about; to prove which, next morning, having
first given me to understand that he appointed me
his military secretary, he bade me draw out a bill
against the Treasury of the United States in favour
of Mr. Tobias Small, the innkeeper, for the pig,
chickens, horse-meat, and night's lodging of the
company, which I did; and he immediately appended
the important order,—“Treasury of the United
States, pay the above,”—signed “Richard Dare,
Capt. of the Bloody Volunteers of Tennessee, now
in service of the United States,” and handed it over
to Mr. Tobias Small, with a magnificent—“There,
you dog! there's an order upon the government:
send it to the Treasury and get your money!”

Our breakfast was paid for with a similar order;
and so was our dinner, but with this difference, that

the order was now addressed to the Treasurer of
the Commonwealth of Tennessee; because we had
learned from a mail-courier on the road, that the
governor of the State had at length issued his proclamation,
calling out the militia, and empowering
the commanding officers of the state army to receive
and enroll all the mounted riflemen who might offer
their patriotic services;—news vastly relished by
the Bloody Volunteers and their warlike captain.

With a sovereign state to back us, there were no
longer difficulties to hinder us on the march; and in
a few days more, we arrived at the town of Knoxville,
the head quarters of the general in chief of the
Eastern District of Tennessee; where the Bloody
Volunteers were immediately received into the service
of the state, and incorporated with a regiment
of mounted men; all as ardent and bloody-minded
as ourselves. And here we remained a short time,
until all the forces of the division required for the
war were mustered; after which, we took up the
line of march for the Indian country.

This period of rest—but rest not to us—was, I
may say, the beginning of the campaign to the
Bloody Volunteers; the history of whose adventures
on the march to head quarters, and especially the
attack by Captain Dare and their consequent rout,
with his immediate election to the command, having
leaked out in the regiment, became the theme
of many witty remarks, that were not, however, at
all agreeable either to the commander or his men.
But the former knew how to support his dignity as
an officer, as well as the dignity of the company he
had the honour to command; and, accordingly, the
day after our introduction to the regiment, he pulled
the nose of a brother captain, who spoke disparagingly
of the company, and challenged him, in addition,

to fight a duel; and the challenge being immediately
accepted, and the duel fought, he had the
good fortune to shoot his adversary through the leg,
which was the very place he aimed at, because the
gentleman had too freely commended the legs of
his company.

This spirited vindication of their honour endeared
Captain Dicky still more to his company; and the
Bloody Volunteers, taking example from their
leader, turned in like manner upon a brother company,
who were pleased to crack similar jokes at
their expense; and immediately there was a battle
royal between the two, the fight being waged furiously
with fists and feet for two mortal hours; at
which period victory declared in our favour, though
it was a victory dearly won. Indeed, the colonel of
the regiment declared, next day at parade, he had
never before seen so many black eyes together in all
his life.

This double triumph somewhat abated the humour
of our adversaries; but we did not entirely escape
their gibes, even when we marched, as we at last did,
into the enemy's country, and were immersed in the
business of war.

The history of the Creek Campaign, to which
the victories of General Jackson, commanding the
forces of the Western District of Tennessee, gave
such brilliant eclat, is well known to every citizen
of the United States; and it is not therefore necessary
that I, who played in it so subordinate a part,
should attempt to relate it to the reader. My business
is with the history of the Bloody Volunteers,
whose valiant achievements, owing to some unaccountable
neglect, have been entirely overlooked by
the historians of the campaign. And this is the
more extraordinary, as the actions of the Bloody

Volunteers were, with but a single exception, the
only ones performed by the Eastern Division worthy
of commemoration. Our general, marching through
the country of the Cherokees, who, notwithstanding
the fears at first entertained of their martial inclinings,
remained firm and faithful friends during the war,
established his camp on the Coosa River, on the borders
of the Creek territory, and there remained I
know not how long, (for it was my fate soon to part
from him,) doing I know not what, unless holding
conncils of war and digesting plans of conquest;
while his rival of the Western division, without
troubling himself to do either, was already carrying
sword and flame to the enemy's wigwams. The
victory of Jackson at Talladega, one of the Indian
towns, fired the emulous spirits of our own
troops, and perhaps the envy of our commander;
who, wakening at length to life and ambition, detached
a brigade with orders to march against another
Creek village or cluster of villages, called the Hillabee
towns, and win him a similar victory. It was
the good fortune of the Bloody Volunteers to form a
part of this detachment.

The march from head quarters to the scene of action,
distant about a hundred miles, occupied us a
week; during which the Bloody Volunteers had
the honour of being constantly employed on the
most important and critical duties. Sometimes we
were sent off to burn little hamlets of deserted wigwams—villages
proper to be destroyed, though too
insignificant to demand the presence of the brigade;
but, more frequently, we were employed as a scouting
party, to beat the woods in advance, look for
trails and stray squaws, from whom to glean intelligence
of the foe, and perform other similar services.

This honour—for so our superiors told us we must

esteem it—we owed, in a great measure, to Captain
Dicky, whose decided military genius, his zeal and
activity,hisintrepidity,and, perhaps, his experience in
battle, had recommended him to the notice of the brigadier;
but, I believe, we owed it in a still greater degree
to the troublesome valour of his men, who had grown
so proud of their victory in the melée of which I
have spoken, that they were now always ready to go
to battle with any of their comrades who reminded
them, as some were always willing enough to do,
of their adventures on the march to head-quarters: and
such affrays were now become dangerous, because
Dicky Dare had succeeded in obtaining permission
to arm his men with swords, to be able to act when
occasion required as cavalry, which they took a great
pride in wearing, and showed much inclination to
use in their private bickerings. To keep the brigade,
or, at least our regiment, from being continually at
logger-heads, it was necessary to keep the Bloody
Volunteers at a distance from their brothers in arms.

This was a happy circumstance for Captain Dare,
who thus obtained a kind of independent command,
the most agreeable to his lofty spirit. Free from
restraint, left half the time to his own resources and
judgment, and feeling within himself that consciousness
of greatness which inspires the destined hero,
he longed for independence still greater, for a yet
wider field of action, for a still brave opportunity
of winning his way to distinction. He wished—for
to me, his friend and secretary, he revealed his
thoughts—he wished the President of the United
States would make him a major general, and confide
to him the two divisions of the Tennessee army,
with the task of conquering the Creeks; which he
thought he could do in a much more rapid and glorious

way than any body else; and then he sighed
to think he was only a militia captain.

But Dicky was too old a soldier to omit making
the best of his present circumstances; and while executing
every duty assigned him with a zeal that
ensured approval, he took means gradually to increase
the numbers of his company, by soliciting
occasional reinforcements from among our Indian
allies,—for we had many friendly Indians among
us, fighting their own countrymen—whom, he assured
his superiors, he could employ to advantage.
Some of these painted barbarians, in fact, always
accompanied us in our expeditions, as guides and
spies; but Captain Dare would have had an army of
them; though he never succeeded in permanently
attaching more than eighteen or twenty of them to
his company.

But with even this slight addition, by which the
force of the Bloody Volunteers was increased to
about forty men, Dicky began to have great thoughts;
and entertained the hope of finding, or making,
some opportunity of fighting a battle, and winning
a victory, on his own account; “for,” as he justly remarked
to me in private, “the brigade might win
twenty victories and he, by Julius Cæsar, as a militia
captain, be none the better for any of them.” It
was a lucky thing for our brigadier, that, in the battle
which we soon after had at the Hillabee towns,
Dicky Dare, though but a militia captain, had only
forty men under his particular command; for, otherwise,
he undoubtedly would have snatched the victory
entirely into his own hands.

We arrived, the evening preceding the attack,
within a few miles of the village, undiscovered; and
early the following morning, marched against it,
our forces being so distributed as nearly, if not entirely,

to surround it. The Bloody Volunteers were,
as usual, assigned to the post of honour and danger;
taking a position beyond the village, for the purpose
of cutting off the retreat of fugitives, who, flying
from the brigade, would most naturally run into
our clutches.

In such a position, it may be supposed, we could
have had our hands sufficiently full of business, destroying
fugitives and picking up prisoners. But
the ambition of Captain Dare disdained the inglorious
task of finishing the work of others; and so
he had no sooner arrived at his post, whence, from
among the trees and bushes, we could see the scattered
wigwams of the Indians, looking all in peace
and quiet, as if unconscious of the presence of a foe,
than he came to a resolution to open the attack himself,
and, if possible, carry the place before the arrival
of his general. And he was just on the point of
ordering us to dismount for the purpose, when, fortunately
for the fame of the latter, the assault was
suddenly begun by his superiors on the other side of
the village, and, in an instant, the village became the
theatre of tumult and conflict. A thousand muskets
and rifles were heard roaring through the woods;
and with them was mingled the din of the Indian
halloo, the wild scream that freezes the blood of those
unaccustomed to it, and gives at once so peculiar,
and I may say so demoniacal, a character to an Indian
battle. Certainly, those horrible yells, that
seemed to express the fury of devils let loose upon
a newly arrived company of condemned spirits, turned
pale the cheeks even of the Bloody Volunteers;
but when Dicky Dare, to reassure us, cried, “Courage,
my brave fellows—remember, an Indian screech
is neither a tomahawk nor a rifle-bullet!” the colour
returned, and they all d—d their souls, like veterans

of ten years service, and swore “they valued an Injun
war-whoop no more than the squeak of a stuck
pig at Christmas.”

At this moment, a band of some fifty or sixty
warriors, at whose wild appearance I felt some very
extraordinary sensations, and especially a tingling at
the top of my head, as if the scalping-knife were
already at work at it, were seen running towards us:
upon which, at Dicky's orders, leaping from our
horses, before they had yet discovered us, and imitating
our Indian adherents, by covering our bodies
behind trees and the thickest bushes, we gave them
a volley, by which a number were killed, and the
rest thrown into the greatest disorder. “Load
again, my lads, and let 'em have another touch, by
Julius Cæsar!” cried Captain Dare; which we did,
and with such good effect, that the savages, who had
rallied, and were now rushing against us with great
apparent courage, were again brought to a stop;
whereupon Captain Dicky immediately exclaimed,
with irrepressible ardour, “Now, by Julius Cæsar!
now's the time; mount, my boys, and we'll finish
them with our sabres!”

The blood of the Bloody Volunteers was fully
up, and they were now equal to any enterprise. So
we mounted our horses, and rushed upon the disordered
and now retreating Indians with our swords,
charging them into the village, of which we should
undoubtedly have taken immediate possession, had
it not been for a tremendous discharge of bullets
shot by a regiment or two of our own friends, who
were also marching into it, and were too busy to inquire
who they were shooting at. “Leave the
houses,” quoth Captain Dare, “and pursue the fugitives.”
We obeyed the order, and again dashed
after the band of savages, whom we had driven so

far, and who were now making off in the forest,
which was, for the most part, sufficiently open to
allow of the operations of cavalry on a small scale.
The fugitives were soon brought to bay; and, scattering,
they took refuge behind the trees, and gave
us so warm a fire, that we were compelled to dismount,
and fight them in the same manner; when,
our Indian allies, whom we had distanced, coming
at last to our aid, so that we became superior in
numbers, our intrepid captain ordered us to close
upon them, which we did, and they again took to
flight. We followed them thus for several miles,
killing several of them, and doubtless wounding
many more; but, by and by, they had all made their
escape, and we returned to the village; which, with
a great number of squaws, and children, and some
old men, was now in the hands of our forces.