University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.
Captain Dare, with the Bloody Volunteers, attempts the conquest
of the Indian country. He fights a great battle, and fortune declares
against him—but still more decidedly against Robin Day,
who falls into the hands of the enemy.

The night passed away without disturbance; and
the Bloody Volunteers rose from their couches the
proudest of militia-men.

And now it was that Captain Dare, (who, I believe,
from the greatness of his aspirations, had not slept
a wink all night,) being convinced from the ease
with which he had won so great a victory, that it
would require but little more trouble to accomplish
still greater ones, resolved to pursue his good fortune
still a little further. His despatch to the Brigadier,
he had no doubt, would bring that officer
with all his army, before many hours, to take possession
of the village and valuable stores Dicky had
won for him. What need the Bloody Volunteers,
then, to remain longer in watch, idling the time that
might procure them a second victory? There were
plenty more Indian villages waiting to be sacked:
why might not Dicky Dare, while his general was
following at his heels, march bravely forward with
his command, and capture another of them? and,
after that, another, and another; until there remained

no more—until the Creek nation was entirely subdued?

In short, Dicky Dare was seized with the ambition
to conquer the Muscogee nation, himself, with
his Bloody Volunteers and Indian allies; not, indeed,
that he thought his band, however swelled in numbers,
was of itself sufficient for such an enterprise;
but it was amply competent, he argued to me, to
whom he confided all his mighty plans, while backed
by the brigade, following nigh at hand, and sustained
at a distance by the army of General Jackson, and
the other forces, which, at different points were
operating in the Creek territories.

And here it is proper to observe, that besides our
own division, now descending the Tallapoosa River,
and General Jackson's at that time on the Coosa,
both assailing the Creeks from the North, there were
two other detatchments attacking them from other
quarters, one from Georgia in the East, another ascending
the Alabama River, of which the Coosa and
Tallapoosa are tributaries, from the south.

With so many armies assailing them, the Creeks,
Captain Dicky argued, must be worried, and
bothered, and frightened out of their senses:
“there's not a man of them,” quoth he, “turns
his face towards one army of enemies without being
apprehensive the other three may at any moment,
be upon his back; if he hears a rifle bang, he
takes it for granted a whole division is at him.” In
fine, Captain Dare decided, that in the midst of these
distractions of the enemy, nothing further was required
for his destruction than a moderate force of men
under some intrepid leader, with judgment enough
to know how much might be done by audacity and
energy. “I attack this village here,” quoth Dicky:
“well, the enemy fancies it's a whole division at

him, yells and flies, and the town is mine! I attack
another, and the same thing follows; and so it may
be to the end.—And who, then, is the conqueror?
I take it for granted, the President and Congress of
the United States could do nothing less than send
me a general's commission immediately; and, by
Julius Cæsar, I should know better how to employ
it than some of these old grannies, that do nothing
for a whole year, and then let the enemy trounce
them.”

I objected to Dicky's plan, the possibility of his
being attacked by superior numbers. “In that
case,” said the hero, “we must fight for it, by Julius
Cæsar: and, at the worst, we can fall back upon the
brigade.”

“But they may cut us off from the brigade,” said
I: “Indians have a great knack at getting on an
enemy's rear.”

“Well then,” quoth Dicky, “we can fall back
upon one of the other armies; which is the comfort
of the thing: retreat must always be open in some
quarter or other.”

Such were Dicky's plans, which, confided to me
alone, (for he had some misgivings they were too
grand to be properly appreciated and approved by
others of the band,) he resolved to make trial of;
and accordingly, as soon as the Bloody Volunteers
had finished their breakfast, he directed each man to
help himself from the stores to a week's provisions,
and as much more as he thought fit to carry, remarking,
that “while we had such scurvy contractors to
take care of us, it was best for every man to take
care of himself;” which was meant to prevent their
suspecting he had a particular purpose in thus providing
them. He requested them also to fill up
their powder-horns and bullet-pouches; “because,”

quoth he, with a grim facetiousness, “if we have
many more villages to take by storm, we shall run
through the ammunition-chest in no time;” a jest
which was not very witty, but highly agreeable,
because of its complimentary character, to the
Bloody Volunteers.

This being all done, he told them “the general
and army were now close at hand, and they must
mount for a little more duty among the wigwams;”
which being nothing more than usual, no one made
objections; and, accordingly, out we all marched to
subdue the Creek nation.

Our first movement, as Dicky had informed me,
was to be against another village twelve miles off,
of which the Indians had told him; though he had
not yet thought fit to acquaint these faithful auxiliaries
of his having any further designs than to reconnoitre
in its neighbourhood, to collect such information
as might be advantageous to the army. But, I
believe, these painted sons of the forest began, by
and by, to suspect there was more in the wind than
they knew, or could approve of, as some half dozen
or more of them took their opportunity, one by
one, to slip away from us; while others became very
importunate to turn back, without, however, giving
any better reason for the step than that they thought
we were getting too far from the Big Captain—that
is, the Brigadier. By and by, some of them saw,
or said they saw, numerous signs, or trails of the
enemy, and swore, with sundry oaths which they
had learned from their white friends, that we should
all be killed, if we went any further; an assurance
which, I am sorry to say, had an unfavourable effect
upon the spirits of the Bloody Volunteers, who
burst into a sudden mutiny, came to a halt, and
swore they loved their captain, but they would be—

not killed, as the Indians said—but they would be
hanged if they went any further. Alas! Captain
Dicky, in laying his plans, had quite forgot that his
valiant volunteers were free and independent militia-men.

But Captain Dicky did not yet despair of the
Bloody Volunteers. He raised himself in his
stirrups, and began to address them in a speech, full
or intended to be full, of ingenious arguments to
prove that the first duty of a soldier, and even a
militia-man, and even an American militia-man,
was to obey his officer; when speech and logic were
both brought to a close by a sudden volley of small
arms let fly from a clump of bushes not far off; by
which one of the allies was brought to the ground,
and a volunteer slightly wounded.

“By Julius Cæsar,” cried Dicky Dare, triumphantly,
“I reckon you'll obey orders now, my fine
fellows; because if you don't you'll be whipped,
that's all!”

And with that, he directed them immediately to
charge the enemy out of their cover; a command
which the Bloody Volunteers, recovering from the
first feelings of consternation, readily obeyed—and
perhaps the more readily, as it did not seem from
the weight of the volley that the ambushed party
could be a numerous one. Of this opinion also were
the allies, who, uttering a spirited whoop, darted
away to right and left with the intention of surrounding
the enemy; who were immediately seen,
to the number of twelve or fifteen warriors, flying
through the woods.

We pursued them, with sufficient ardour, a
little way to a thicket, in which they had taken
refuge, and from which they gave us a second fire;
while almost at the same moment, a third volley

was discharged from the wood at our left; by which
we perceived we had more than one party to contend
with.

Upon this, there was a cry among the men to fall
back, lest we should be surrounded by superior
numbers, and our retreat cut off.

“Very well,” quoth Captain Dicky Dare; “but
we must first trounce these vagabonds; for, by Julius
Cæsar, I am not going to fly before them.”

The auxiliaries were directed to dislodge the first
party from the thicket; while Captain Dare, with
the Bloody Volunteers, rode against the other in
the wood. Both parties were soon driven from
their coverts, with some loss on their side; and as
both the bands were greatly inferior in strength to
the forces acting against them, we were tempted to
continue the pursuit a little further, the friendly
Indians chasing their party in one direction, and
we ours in another.

In this manner we became a little separated from
the allies; when, on a sudden, a great firing was
heard in the direction they had taken, by which the
Bloody Volunteers were thrown into a second panic,
and were with great difficulty persuaded by the
magnanimous Dicky to ride with him to the assistance
of our red friends; who, it was now plain, had
fallen upon, and were engaged with a considerable
body of enemies. We found them in full retreat
before a force of savages as strong as our own, but
disputing every inch and fighting, in their way from
tree to tree, as they retired.

Observing the condition of the battle with the
eye and judgment of a Bonaparte, Dicky ordered
us to dismount, and leave our horses in charge of
the wounded man, who retired a little distance to
the rear; while we took a concealed position such

as would bring us upon the enemy's flank, as he
drew nigh in the pursuit. This in a few moments
procured us an opportunity of delivering a most
successful and destructive fire, by which the savages
were for a moment greatly disordered; so that nothing
more was necessary to secure us the victory
than firmness on the part of our allies, whom Dicky,
not doubting their faithful cooperation, now called
on to unite with us in a general charge. But, alas!
the Bloody Volunteers charged alone; the allies taking
advantage of the diversion effected in their favour,
only to continue their retreat.

Our gallantry only served the purpose of bringing
upon us the whole body of enemies, who came rushing
up with terrible whoops and yells, brandishing
their knives and hatchets, gnashing their teeth—in
short, acting like so many tigers hungry for their
prey.

The Bloody Volunteers forgot their fame, and fled.
It was in vain Captain Dicky entreated them to
“stand firm, and let the villains have it;” the cry
was every man for himself;” and away they ran pellmell
after the horses, to secure their escape. Even
Captain Dicky himself, thus abandoned by his heroes,
was compelled to follow their example; and so, it
may be supposed, was I. I ran as hard as I could;
and being both lighter and fleeter of foot than any
of the bloody Volunteers, I was soon up with the
headmost, and, indeed, a little in advance of them,
looking eagerly for the horses, none of which, however,
were to be seen; when the flight of the whole
company was terribly brought to an end, at least in
that direction, by a volley from another and more
powerful band of Creeks, who had laid an ambush
upon our rear, and now, having fired their guns fairly
in our faces, leaped upon us to finish the work

with their tomahawks. As for myself, being in advance
of the rest, I actually rushed into the very
midst of the ambuscade, and almost into the arms of
a warrior; who started up, shot off his piece within
two yards of my head, and then, dropping it, ran at
me with a long scalping-knife, roaring with triumph,
and in good English, “Shiver my timbers, shipmate,
I'll have your scalp any how!”

The words, unspeakably dreadful to my ears, were
not less wonderful than dreadful; they came from
the lips of my extraordinary friend, Captain Jack
Brown; whom, notwithstanding that his face was
all streaked over with paint like an Indian's, I immediately
recognised, because—not to speak of his voice,
which I could not so soon forget—he wore the very
same sailor's clothes in which I had last seen him in
Virginia.

It was no time, then, to remember the wrongs he
had done me: at such a moment, I could have forgiven
him, if he had robbed, cozened, and sold me
to slavery a dozen times over. I called immediately
for quarter:—“Quarter, Captain Brown!” I cried;
“don't kill an old friend.”

“What! Chowder Chow, sink me!” he cried;
and his fury evaporated in a tremendouslaugh. “And
so you're out of that scrape, are you? But I'll be
hang'd if you an't in a much worse one now!”