Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/26

 JACKSON

JACKSON

forces and to proceed to Fort Scott. The express bearing these orders reached the Hermitage, Jan. 11, 1818, and on January 31 two regiments of mounted men, recruited in Tennessee in twenty days, were at Fayetteville under Colonel Hayne, ready to take up their march to Fort Jackson and thence to Fort Scott, where General Jackson had preceded them, recruiting on his way 2000 Creek warriors under command of Brigadier- General MTntosh, the half-breed chief who had commanded the friendly Indians at the Horse- Shoe in 1811. He also gathered nine hundred Georgia volunteers and on March 9, 1817, reached Fort Scott to find there no jDrisoners, a starving garrison and no news from General Gaines or Colonel Hayne. His only alternative was to take up the line of march and gather the needed provisions as they might. On reaching Negro Fort on Prospect Bluff, his aide. Lieutenant Gads- den, built a fortification, which his chief named Fort Gadsden, and his force obtaining no news of supplies promised from New Orleans, he put his troops on half-rations, determined until the completion of the fort to subsist on the enemy in their own country. Meantime Colonel Hayne and General Gaines reached the main army. On March 25, General Jackson wrote to the governor of Pensacola not to interrupt the passage of transports on pain of declaration of liostilities with his Catholic majesty, reciting that both governments were interested in the punishment of the savages. The same day Colonel Gibson, U.S.A., and Captain McKeever, U.S.N., arrived with the flotilla of provisions, and the next day Jackson moved his army toward St. Marks, and reached the place April 6. He then sent Lieutenant Gadsden to the governor with a letter exjjlaining his purpose and object to be "to chastise a savage foe, who combined with a lawless band of negro brigands who had been for some time past carrying on a cruel and unprovoked war against the citizens of the United States." He also announced his deter- mination to garrison the fort with American troops until the close of the present war in order to prevent its being made a place of refuge for the enemy, and at the same time he provided protection to Spanish rights and property. On April 7, Captain Twiggs took forcible possession of the fort, lowering the Spanish flag and raising the Stars and Stripes. Alexander Arbuthnot, an Indian trader whom Jackson had sought, was found within the fort, an inmate of the governor's own quarters, and Twiggs caused his arrest just as he was mounting liis horse to escape. The two leaders of the Seminoles, Francis, the pro- phet or Hellis Hojo, and Cliief HimoUemico, who had tortured Lieutenant Scott, had been captured by Captain McKeever, and were

promptly hanged, by order of General Jackson. On April 17, 1818, Jackson's army encamped on the banks of the Sewanee river, but the foe had escaped from the town and Jackson burned the place, which comprised about three lumdred houses. Robert C. Ambrister blundered into the American camp, seeking to meet the Indians, and was arrested with his attendant, Peter B. Cook, and two negro servants, and on the person of one of the servants was found a letter from Arbuthnot to his son warning the Indians of the presence of Jackson's army. The Seminole war was ended, and on April 20 the Georgia troops marched home- ward. On the 2-lth General Mcintosh and his brigade of Indians were dismissed, and on the 25th General Jackson returned with his Tennessee troops and the regulars to Fort St. Marks, where he convened a military court for the trial of Ambrister and Arbuthnot', April 26, 1818. On the 28th the court brought in a verdict of guilty and they were sentenced to be shot. The case of Arbuthnot was reconsidered, and the sentence was changed to fifty stripes on his bare back and confinement by ball and chain to hard labor for twelve months. General Jackson dis- ai^proved the reconsideration in the case of Arbuthnot, and arbitrarily changed his first sen- tence from being sliot to being hanged; his son, John James Arbuthnot, to be furnished a passage to Pensacola by the first vessel. On April 29 the sentences were carried out. Jackson left Fort St. Marks, April 28; reached Fort Gadsden, May 2; started northward, and was received at Nashville with all the honors of a military hero. In the administrative councils at Washington the Presi- dent, with all his cabinet except Secretary of State Adams, felt that General Jackson in taking Pensacola had transcended his orders, but Mr. Adams's arguments in his defence reassured the people of the United States and went far toward conciliating the Spanish government. It had the effect of averting war with Spain, and received the endorsement of Jefferson, Secretary- Callioun proposed a court of inquiry, but it was not held. Early in January, 1819, General Jackson set out for Washington, and reached that place. Jan- uary 27, and awaited the deliberations of congress on his campaign in Florida. The debate had begun, January 12, and Mr. Clay had made a bitter speech, which was the beginning of a long feud between the two statesmen. Col. R. M. Johnson replied to Mr. Clay, and on February 2, one week before the close of the long debate. Representa- tive George Poindexter, of Mississippi, made his. able defence of Jackson, which he fortified by papers and documents. Representative William Henry Harrison, of Oliio, condemned the course of General Jackson. On February 8 the vote of the committee of the whole was taken, and General