Chapter 9

Not that they had been doin' us much good that we could tell, we got word that the soldiers at Fort Gaines were bein' sent ta New Orleans. An attack wuz expected by them damned English down there, an' the soldiers were needed more there than here. Anyway, we wuz operatin' on what the Army called "heightened alert."

The Army left an' the Injuns got the hint. The trouble started slowly, but it was steadily increasin', 'til we had a full fledged war on our hands, again. At least, by this time, the Henryville militia had nearly 50 men in "uniform," so we were in pretty good shape an' could meet them Creek Injuns in open battle. I hoped that this time we could suck them into a battle what would discourage 'em from botherin' us any more.

The Henryville school teacher was a gold mine of useful information about the tactics the Roman legions used and were bein' used now over in Europe. I had our militia practice something called the "box." This had a bunch of pikemen lined up in a box-like arrangement with musketeers or archers inside the box. We had enough men in the militia that we could form a box with 10 men on a side and have seven crossbowmen, plus me an' Ezra inside the box. Southeastern Alabama weren't a good place ta try ta use long pikes cuz all the trees would git in the way, but our swords would serve just as well. With the swordsmen ta protect the crossbowmen from close attack, we could play hell with any bunch of Injuns foolish enough to fight with us.

It was in the fall of 1814 when we had a chance to test our new tactics against a real enemy. The Redsticks had pretty well gone away as a fightin' force, but the treaty that Andy Jackson had forced on the defeated Creeks turned even the ones who had supported the settlers into enemies. Henryville and its neighborhood was being threatened by a force of about 200 Creeks comin' down from the northwest. The country was rollin' plains with a few trees in that direction from Henryville, so our new way of fightin' ought ta serve us well.

We got word of the threat in plenty of time ta git ready, so we were in position when the Creek Army showed up. Man, talk 'bout a fierce lookin' bunch! They wuz all painted fer war an' wearin' their fightin' clothes. Their weapons were still warclubs with an occasional spear or musket scattered here an' there. Their main tactic was still ta rush up ta us an' start flailin' away with that there warclub. They could have defeated us ifen they had tried to run right over us; we didn't have enough men ta stand up ta that kind of attack. Lucky fer us, they stuck ta their traditional way of fightin', so we had the advantage.

It was jus' on the far side of Graball when we met their army. We wuz standin' on the side of a long hill, an' the Creeks had ta charge uphill ta git ta us. The hill weren't steep, but a man would lose a little steam by the time he run up it. We wuz set up just below the crest of the hill, an' the slope made it a little easier ta shoot our crossbows over the heads of our men lined up in front of us.