An Autobiography of Davy Crockett

by Stephen Brennan

  The scene was particularly described to me by a young man who was in the fort when it hap pened and subsequently went on with us to Pensacola. He said that he saw his father and mother, his four sisters and the same number of brothers, all butchered in the most shocking manner and that he made his escape by running over the heads of the crowd, who were against the fort wall, to the top of the fort, and then jumping off, taking to the woods. He was closely pursued by several Indians until he came to a small bayou, across which there was a log. He knew the log was hollow on the under side so he slip’d under the log and hid himself. He said he heard the Indians walk over him several times back and forward. He remained, nevertheless, still till night when he came out and finished his escape. The name of this young man has entirely escaped my recollection, though his tale greatly excited my feelings. But to return to my subject. The regiment marched from where Gen’l. Jackson had left us to Fort Montgomery, which was distant from Fort Mimms about a mile and a half, where we remained for some days.

  Here we supplied ourselves pretty well with beef, by killing wild cattle which had formerly belonged to the people who perished in the fort, but had gone wild after their massacre.

  When we marched from Fort Montgomery, we went some distance back towards Pensacola, then we turned to the left and passed through a poor piny country till we reached the Scamby river, near which we encamped. We had about one thousand men and as a part of that number, one hundred and eighty-six Chickesaw and Choctaw Indians with us. That evening a boat landed from Pensacola, bringing many articles that were both good and necessary, such as sugar and coffee and liquors of all kinds. The same evening, the Indians we had along proposed to cross the river, and the officers thinking it might be well for them to do so, consented and Major Russell went with them, taking sixteen white men, of which number I was one. We camped on the opposite bank that night and early in the morning we set out. We had not gone far before we came to a place where the whole country was covered with water and looked like a sea. We didn’t stop for this, tho’, but just put in like so many spaniels, and waded on, sometimes up to our armpits, until we reached the pine hills, which made our distance through the water about a mile and a half. Here we struck up a fire to warm ourselves, for it was cold, and we were chilled through by being so long in the water. We again moved on, keeping our spies out; two to our left near the bank of the river, two straight before us, and two others on our right. We had gone in this way about six miles up the river when our spies on the left came to us leaping the brush like so many old bucks, and informed us that they had discovered a camp of Creek Indians and that we must kill them. Here we paused for a few minutes and the prophets pow-wowed over their men awhile, and then got out their paint and painted them, all according to their custom when going into battle. They then brought their paint to old Major Russell and said to him that as he was an officer and must be paint ed too. He agreed and they painted him just as they had done themselves. We let the Indians understand that we white men would first fire on the camp, and then fall back, so as to give the In dians a chance to rush in and scalp them. The Chickasaws marched on our left hand, the Choctaws on our right, and we moved on till we got in hearing of the camp, where the Indians were employed in beating up what they called chainy briar root. On this they mostly subsisted. On a nearer approach we found they were on an island and that we could not get to them. While we were chatting about this matter, we heard some guns fired and, in a very short time after a keen whoop, which satisfied us that whereever it was, there was war on a small scale. With that we all broke, like quarter horses, for the firing and when we got there we found it was our two front spies who related to us the following story: As they were moving on, they had met with two Creeks who were out hunting their horses; as they approached each other, there was a large cluster of green bay bushes exactly between them so that they were within a few feet of meeting before either was discovered. Our spies walked up to them and, speaking in the Shawnee tongue, informed them that General Jackson was at Pensacola and they were making their escape and wanted to know where they could get some thing to eat. The Creeks told them that nine miles up the Conaker, the river they were then on, there was a large camp of Creeks and they had cattle and plenty to eat and further, that their own camp was on an island about a mile off just below the mouth of the Conaker. They held their conversation and struck up a fire and smoked together, shook hands and parted. One of the Creeks had a gun, the other had none, and as soon as they had parted, our Choctaws turned round and shot down the one that had the gun, and the other attempted to run off. They snapped several times at him, but the gun still missing fire, they took after him, and overtaking him, one of them struck him over the head with his gun and followed up his blows till he killed him.

  The gun was broken in the combat and they then fired off the gun of the Creek they had killed and raised the war-whoop. When we reached them, they had cut off the heads of both the In dians and each of those Indians with us would walk up to one of the heads and, taking his war club, would strike on it. This was done by every one of them and when they had got done, I took one of their clubs and walked up as they had done and struck it on the head also. At this they all gathered round me and, patting me on the shoulder, would call me “Warrior—warrior.”

  They scalped the heads and then we moved on a short distance to where we found a trace leading in towards the river. We took this trace and pursued it till we came to where a Spaniard had been killed and scalped together with a woman, who we supposed to be his wife, and also four children. I began to feel mighty ticklish along about this time, for I knowed if there was no danger then, there had been; and I felt exactly like there still was. We, however, went on till we struck the river and then continued down it till we came opposite to the Indian camp, where we found they were still beating their roots.

  It was now late in the evening and they were in a thick cane brake. We had some few friendly Creeks with us, who said they could decoy them. So we all hid behind trees and logs, while the attempt was made. The Indians would not agree that we should fire, but pick’d out some of their best gunners, and placed them near the river. Our Creeks went down to the river’s side and hailed the camp in the Creek language. We heard an answer, and an Indian man started down towards the river but didn’t come in sight. He went back and again commenced beating his roots and sent a squaw. She came down and talked with our Creeks until dark came on. They told her they wanted her to bring them a canoe. To which she replied that their canoe was on our side. that two of their men had gone out to hunt their horses and hadn’t yet returned. They were the same two we had killed. The canoe was found and forty of our picked Indian warriors were crossed over to take the camp. There was at last only one man in it. He escaped and they took two squaws and ten children, but killed none of them, of course.

  We had run nearly out of provisions and Ma jor Russell had determined to go up the Conaker to the camp we had heard of from the Indians we had killed. I was one that he selected to go down the river that night for provisions with the canoe to where we had left our regiment. I took with me a man by the name of John Guess and one of the friendly Creeks and cut out. It was very dark and the river was so full that it overflowed the banks and the adjacent low bottoms. This rendered it very difficult to keep the channel and particularly as the river was very crooked. At about ten o’clock at night we reached the camp and were to return by morning to Major Russell with provisions for his trip up the river, but on informing Colonel Blue of this arrangement, he vetoed it as quick as General Jackson did the bank bill and said, if Major Russell didn’t come back the next day, it would be bad times for him. I found we were not to go up the Conaker to the Indian camp and a man of my company offered to go up in my place to inform Major Russell. I let him go and they reached the major, as I was told, about sunrise in the morning, who immediately returned with those who were with him to the regiment and joined us where we crossed the river, as hereafter stated.


  The next morning we all fixed up and marched down the Scamby to a place called Miller’s Landing where we swam our horses across and sent on two companies down on the side of the bay opposite to Pensacola, where the Indians had fled when the main army first marched to that place. One was the company of Captain William Russell, a son of the old major, and the other was commanded by a Captain Trimble. They went on and had a little skirmish with the Indians. They killed some and took all the balance prisoners, though I don’t remember the numbers. We again met those companies in a day or two and sent the prisoners they had taken on to Fort Montgomery, in charge of some of our Indians.

  I did hear that after they left us, the Indians killed and scalped all the prisoners and I never heard the report contradicted. I cannot positively say it was true, but I think it entirely probable, for it is very much like the Indian character.

  WHEN we made a move from the point where we met the companies, we set out for Chatahachy, the place for which we had started when we left Fort Montgomery. At the start we had taken only twenty days’ rations of flour, and eight days’ rations of beef; and it was now thirty-four days before we reached that place. We were, therefore, in extreme suffering for want of something to eat, and exhausted with our exposure and the fatigues of our journey. I remember well, that I had not myself tasted bread but twice in nineteen days. I had bought a pretty good supply of coffee from the boat that had reached us from Pensacola, on the Scamby, and on that we chiefly subsisted. At length, one night our spies came in, and in formed us they had found Holm’s village on the Chatahachy river; and we made an immediate push for that place. We traveled all night, ex pecting to get something to eat when we got there. We arrived about sunrise and near the place prepared for battle. We were all so furious that even the certainty of a pretty hard fight could not have restrained us. We made a furious charge on the town but to our great mortification and surprise, there wasn’t a human being in it. The Indians had all run off and left it. We burned the town, however; but, melancholy to tell, we found no provision whatever. We then turned about, and went back to the camp we had left the night before as nearly starved as any set of poor fellows ever were in the world.

  We staid there only a little while when we divided our regiment, and Major Childs, with his men, went back the way we had come for a considerable distance and then turned to Baton-Rouge, where they joined General Jackson and the main army on their return from Orleans. Major Russell and his men struck for Fort Decatur, on the Talapoosa river. Some of our friendly Indians, who knew the country, went on ahead of us, as we had no trail except the one they made to follow. With them we sent some of our ablest horses and men to get us some provisions to pre vent us from absolutely starving to death. As the army marched, I hunted every day and would kill every hawk, bird, and squirrel that I could find. Others did the same; and it was a rule with us, that when we stop’d at night, the hunters would throw all they killed in a pile and then we would make a general division among all the men. One evening I came in, having killed nothing that day. I had a very sick man in my mess and I wanted something for him to eat, even if I starved myself. So I went to the fire of a Captain Cowen, who commanded my company after the promotion of Major Russell, and informed him that I was on the hunt of something for a sick man to eat. I knowed the captain was as bad off as the rest of us but I found him broiling a turkey’s gizzard. He said he had divided the turkey out among the sick, that Major Smiley had killed it, and that nothing else had been killed that day. I immediately went to Smiley’s fire, where I found him broiling another gizzard. I told him that it was the first turkey I had ever seen have two gizzards. But so it was, I got nothing for my sick man. And now seeing that every fellow must shift for himself, I determined that in the morning, I would come up missing, so I took my mess and cut out to go ahead of the army. We know’d that nothing more could happen to us if we went than if we stayed, for it looked like it was to be starvation any way; we therefore determined to go on the old saying, root hog or die. We passed two camps, at which our men that had gone on before us, had killed Indians. At one they had killed nine, and at the other three. About daylight we came to a small river, which I thought was the Scamby but we continued on for three days, killing little or nothing to eat till, at last, we all began to get nearly ready to give up the ghost and lie down and die, for we had no prospect of provision and we knew we couldn’t go much further without it.

  We came to a large prairie that was about six miles across it and in this I saw a trail which I knowed was made by bear, deer, and turkeys. We went on through it till we came to a large creek and the low grounds were all set over with wild rye, looking as green as a wheat field. We here made a halt, unsaddled our horses and turn ed them loose to graze.

  One of my companions, a Mr. Vanzant, and my self, then went up the low grounds to hunt. We had gone some distance, finding nothing when at last I found a squirrel which I shot, but he got into a hole in the tree. The game was small, but necessity is not very particular so I thought I must have him and I climbed that tree thirty feet high, without a limb, and pulled him out of his hole. I shouldn’t relate such small matters, only to show what lengths a hungry man will go to to get something to eat. I soon killed two other squirrels and fired at a large hawk. At this a large gang of turkeys rose from the cane brake and flew across the creek to where my friend was, who had just before crossed it. He soon fired on a large gobler and I heard it fall. By this time my gun was loaded again, and I saw one sitting on my side of the creek which had flew over when he fired so I blazed away and down I brought him. I gathered him up, a fine turkey he was. I now began to think we had struck a breeze of luck and almost forgot our past sufferings in the prospect of once more having something to eat. I raised the shout and my comrade came to me and we went on to our camp with the game we had killed. While we were gone, two of our mess had been out and each of them had found a bee tree. We turned into cooking some of our game but we had neither salt nor bread. Just at this moment, on looking down the creek, we saw our men who had gone on before us for provisions coming to us. They came up and measured out to each man a cupfull of flower. With this, we thickened our soup when our turkey was cooked and our friends took dinner with us and then went on.

  We now took our tomahawks and went and cut our bee-trees, out of which we got a fine chance of honey; though we had been starving so long that we feared to eat much at a time, till, like the Irish by hanging, we got used to it again. We rested that night without moving our camp and the next morning myself and Vanzant again turned out to hunt. We had not gone far before I wounded a fine buck very badly and, while pur suing him, I was walking on a large tree that had fallen down when, from the top of it, a large bear broke out and ran off. I had no dogs and I was sorry enough for it, for of all the hunting I ever did, I have always delighted most in bear hunting. Soon after this, I killed a large buck and we had just gotten him to camp when our poor starved army came up. They told us that to lessen their sufferings as much as possible, Captain William Russell had had his horse led up to be shot for them to eat just at the moment that they saw our men returning, who had carried on the flour.

  We were now about fourteen miles from Fort Decatur and we gave away all our meat and honey and went on with the rest of the army. When we got there, they could give us only one ration of meat but not a mouthful of bread. I im mediately got a canoe, and taking my gun, crossed over the river and went to the Big Warrior’s town. I had a large hat and I offered an Indian a silver dollar for my hat full of corn. He told me that his corn was all “shuestea,” which in English means it was all gone. But he showed me where an Indian lived, who, he said, had corn. I went to him and made the same offer. He could talk a little broken English and he said to me, “You got any powder? You got bullet?” I told him I had. He then said, “Me swap my corn for powder and bullet.” I took out about ten bullets and showed him and he proposed to give me a hat full of corn for them. I took him up mighty quick. I then offered to give hi
m ten charges of powder for another hat full of corn. To this he agreed very willingly. So I took off my hunting-shirt and tied up my corn and though it had cost me very little of my powder and lead, I wouldn’t have taken fifty silver dollars for it. I re turned to the camp and the next morning we start ed for the Hickory Ground, which was thirty miles off. It was here that General Jackson met the In dians and made peace with the body of the nation.

  We got nothing to eat at this place and we had yet to go forty-nine miles over a rough and wil derness country to Fort Williams. Parched corn, and but little even of that, was our daily subsistence. When we reached Fort Williams, we got one ration of pork and one of flour, which was our only hope until we could reach Fort Strother.