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signal favors on Jackson, and he vowed vengeance. Meeting the Benton brothers soon after at a Nashville hotel, a bloody affray followed, in which Jackson's arm and shoulder were horribly shattered by two balls and a slug

from the pistol of Jesse Benton. Jackson's wounds were very severe. While he was

lingering, haggard and wan, upon a bed of suffering, news came that the Indians, who had combined under Tecumseh, from Florida to the Lakes, to exterminate the white settlers, were committing the most awful ravages. Decisive action

became necessary. General Jackson, with his fractured bones just beginning to heal, his arm in a sling, and unable to mount his horse without assistance, gave his amazing energies to the raising of an army to rendezvous at Fayetteville, on the borders of Alabama, on the 4th of October, 1813.

FIGHTING THE INDIANS.

The Creek Indians had established a strong fort on one of the bends of the Tallapoosa River, near the centre of Alabama, about fifty miles below Fort Strother. With an army of two thousand men, General Jackson traversed the pathless wilderness in a march of eleven days. He reached their fort, called Tohopeka, or Horseshoe, on the 27th of March, 1814. The bend of the river inclosed nearly one hundred acres of tangled forest and wild ravine. Across the narrow neck the Indians had constructed a formidable breastwork of logs and brush. Here nine hundred warriors, with an ample supply of arms and ammunition, were assembled.

The fort was stormed. The fight was utterly desperate. Not an Indian would accept of quarter. When bleeding and dying, they would fight those who endeavored to spare their lives. From ten in the morning until dark the battle raged. The carnage was awful and revolting. Some threw themselves into the river; but the unerring bullet struck their heads as they swam. Nearly every one of the nine hundred warriors was killed. A few probably, in the night, swam the river and escaped. This ended the war. The power of the Creeks was broken forever. This bold plunge into the wilderness, with its terrific slaughter, so appalled the savages, that the haggard remnants of the bands came to the camp, begging for peace.

This closing of the Creek war enabled us to concentrate our militia upon the British, who were the allies of the Indians. Immediately, on the 31st of May, Jackson was appointed major-general in the army of the United States. This gave him an income of between six and seven thousand dollars a year, and made him, for those times, a rich man. No man of less resolute will than General Jackson could have conducted this Indian campaign to so successful an issue. Through the whole Indian campaign he suffered terribly from the wounds and debility occasioned by his senseless feud with Colonel Benton. He was pale and haggard and pain-worn, often enduring the extreme of agony. Not many men, suffering as he did, would have been out of the sick chamber.

Immediately upon the fall of Napoleon, in 1814, the British Cabinet decided to strike America a crushing blow. It was their plan to take New Orleans, lay all our seaport towns in ashes, annihilate our navy, and, by holding the Atlantic, the Mississippi, and the Lakes, to imprison us in our forests. The British were at Pensacola and Appalachicola, dispensing arms to the Indians in that region, and preparing for their grand naval and land expedition to New Orleans. Most

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of the hostile Indians, flying from the tremendous blows which General Jackson had dealt them, had also taken refuge in Florida. Jackson, far away in the wilderness, was left to act almost without instructions. He decided to take the responsibility, and assumed the independence of a sovereign.

The whole South and West were fully aroused to meet and repel the foe. By the 1st of November General Jackson had in Mobile an army of four thou sand men. He resolved to march upon Pensacola, where the Spaniards were sheltering our foes, and, as he expressed it, "rout out the English." He advanced upon Pensacola, stormed the town, took possession of every fort, and drove the British fleet out to sea. Garrisoning Mobile, he moved his troops to New Orleans, a distance of one hundred and seventy miles. General Jackson himself was so feeble that he could ride but seventeen miles a day. He reached New Orleans

class, and which had obtained renown in the naval conflicts of Trafalgar and the Nile, was assembled in a spacious bay on the western end of the Island of Jamaica. This fleet, which carried a thousand cannon, was manned by nearly nine thousand soldiers and marines, and transported a land force of ten thousand veteran soldiers, fresh from the wars of Europe, and flushed with victory over Napoleon. The fleet entered Lake Borgne, a shallow bay opening into the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans, on the 10th of December, 1814. There were five small cutters in the lake, which were soon overpowered by the immense force of the foe. Unaware how feeble was General Jackson's force, they did not deem it prudent to move upon the city until they had greatly increased their numbers. This delay probably saved New Orleans.

At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 23d, General Jackson learned that the foe, marching from Lake Borgne, were within a few miles of the city. He immediately collected his motley force of young farmers and mechanics, about two thousand in number, and marched to meet them. He fell upon them impetuously in a night attack, checked their progress, and drove them back toward their landing-place. The British, surprised by the fury of the assault, waited for reinforcements, which came up in large numbers during the night.

THE GREAT VICTORY AT NEW ORLEANS.

Pakenham, on the 28th, pushed his veteran battalions forward on a reconnoissance, and to sweep, if possible, over General Jackson's unfinished breastwork. It was a brilliant morning. Jackson, an old borrowed telescope in his hand, was on the watch. The solid columns of red-coats came on, in military array, as beautiful as awe-inspiring. The artillery led, heralding the advance with a shower of Congreve rockets, round shot, and shell. The muskets of the infantry flashed like mirrors in the light of the morning sun. The Britons were in high glee. It was absurd to suppose that a few thousand raw militia could resist the veterans who had conquered the armies of Napoleon.

General Jackson had not quite three thousand men behind his breastwork; but every one had imbibed the spirit of his chieftain. There were eight thousand veteran soldiers marching upon them. For a few hours there were the tumult, the horror, the carnage of a battle; and then the British host seemed to have melted away. With shattered ranks, leaving their dead behind them, a second time they retreated. A third attack, on January 1st, had the same result.

On Friday, the 6th, General Jackson became assured that the enemy was preparing to attack him on both sides of the river. At half an hour before dawn, Sunday morning, January 8, 1815, a rocket from the hostile lines gave the signal for the attack. In two solid columns, the British advanced upon our ramparts, which were bristling with infantry and artillery, and behind which General Jackson had now collected an army of about four thousand men, all inspired with the zeal of their commander.

Our men were well protected. With bare bosoms, the British marched upon the embankment, from which there was poured forth an incessant storm of bullets, balls, and shells, which no flesh and blood could stand. It was one of the most awful scenes of slaughter which was ever witnessed. Every bullet accomplished its mission, spending its force in the bodies of those who were insanely driven forward to inevitable death. Two hundred men were cut down by one discharge of a thirty-two pounder, loaded to the muzzle with musketballs, and poured into the head of a column at the distance of but a few yards.

Regiments vanished, a British officer said, "as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up. The American line looked like a row of fiery furnaces. General Jackson walked slowly along his ranks, cheering his men, and saying:"Stand to your guns! Don't waste your ammunition! See that every shot tells! Let us finish the business to-day!"

Two hours passed, and the work was done, -effectually done. As the smoke lifted, the whole proud array had disappeared. The ground was so

covered with the dying and the dead, that, for a quarter of a mile in front, one might walk upon their bodies; and, far away in the distance, the retreating lines of the foe were to be seen. On both sides of the river the enemy was repulsed.

The British had about nine thousand in the engagement, and we but about four thousand. Their loss in killed and wounded was two thousand six hundred, while ours was but thirteen. Thus ended the great battle of New Orleans.

In those days intelligence traveled so slowly that it was not until the 4th of