Alternate Generals III

More Choctaws went down. Others ran. Still others charged us while we were reloading. We were fighting them hand to hand in front, and the others were doing them same behind them, with everybody shouting and screaming.

The shouting and the war paint made me sure we had Choctaws against us and Cherokees on our side. I don't speak enough Cherokee to do more than be polite if I meet one of them out hunting. I did shout back what I hoped sounded like thanks.

After a while, there weren't any more live Choctaws, at least on their feet. T Some of them had been close enough to hear the shooting and ran back, coming empty-handed but too late for the fight. I told them to set snares for rabbits. Finally the deer hunters came back, enough to go around, including a great big buck.

When we'd done eating, I handed the buck's hide to the woman, whose name was Caroline Pineraft Bearkiller. She looked at it, and gri

"Do you want to court me?" Then she turned to her war party and told them what she'd asked, only she used a much ruder word than "court."

I'd heard that Cherokee women were plain-spoken, but I was glad it was twilight so nobody could see me blushing.

"Well," I said. "There are other ways of sleeping warm, beside that. A good buckskin is one of them." She nodded, took the buckskin, sat down with it across her knees, and began looking at it for holes.

I laughed, and then waved Lieutenant Goble and three of the four sergeants over to me. (The fourth was tending to the cooking, but I didn't worry much about him. He's fifty years old and has nine children and fourteen grandchildren.).

"Nobody even looks strange at Caroline Bearkiller," I told them. "If you do, her warriors might kill you. Or she might decide to change her name to Mankiller. Or I might kill you."

Brother, if you read this after I am gone, find Caroline Pineraft Bearkiller or her family and give them whatever a Cherokee warrior gives a woman he would like to court, in my name. I hope and pray that even if I don't walk out to Georgia, she will.

By my hope of heaven and my fear of hell,

Thomas

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Joshua Parker to Thomas Parker, Nantes, France,

January 12, 1814

Brother,

The English papers assure the world that the Indians are sweeping all before them in Georgia, as Wellington is in Spain and the allies in Germany. I permit myself to hope that if the part about the Indians is true, they have not swept you up.

We have reason to believe that the papers are telling the truth, about the fall of New Orleans. Whether they are also truthful in saying that the French inhabitants of the city would not fight to remain under American rule, is a matter for speculation. Can you add to our knowledge of these circumstances?

Any possession of that city gives the British a military advantage, through holding the mouth of the Mississippi and barring the commerce of the settlers in the great river's valley. They might also be able to carve out their dreamed-of "Indian homeland." Does anyone believe this reflects anything but a desire to use them as catspaws against the United States?

Indeed, by the terms of the original Treaty of San Iledefonso, by which the French gained Louisiana from Spain, the French had no right to sell the territory to President Jefferson and he had no right to buy it! When we were at peace and the Spanish at war with the British, this clearly mattered little. But now that Spain and Britain are allies, with the British using Florida, could the British Crown not find a pretext for «protecting» their allies' territory from the dreadful Yankees and so remain in occupation of New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana in perpetuity?

I fear that giving the British cause to fear our power at sea may not have served our national purpose as well as we thought it would.

I must set down my pen, as we have just learned that Commodore Samuel Barron has reached Nantes and wishes to embark for the United States, apparently with hope of reinstatement in the Navy and a command at sea! This also is an unexpected consequence of the course of the war at sea.

P.S.-We are hastily preparing for sea. It appears that the Alliance against Napoleon may be disintegrating. There is talk of a victory over Wellington in the south of France, and a separate peace with Austria. The French semaphore system sends messages with the speed of the wind, but of course it can send lies as easily and swiftly as truth.

If the French can then make peace with the British, they will face only Spain, Prussia, and Russia. Spain is weak, Prussia implacable but needing British subsidies, and the czar a weathercock whose armies in any case would be campaigning far from home. Since any peace with the British would surely require an end to French cooperation with the Americans, we wish to be at sea before the French can decide to throw us to the Lion as a gesture of goodwill.

This letter goes on the Baltimore privateer Barrett, although I hope to have time to make a fair copy.

In regrettable haste,

Joshua

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Thomas Parker to Joshua Parker, from the middle of Georgia, late March, 1814

This missive ought to find its way to Baltimore, and I hope onward to you. If the rumors about peace in Europe are true, the British will have ships and to spare for us, not having to blockade the French coast anymore.

Since the last time I wrote, we have marched a long ways toward Sava

It seems as if the Muskogee Nation Indians used a deal of their powder and guns from the British to settle old scores with the Cherokee. This puts the Cherokee firmly on our side, at least as long as we're fighting the British.

General Jackson's command is catching up with us. When it does, we will have about two thousand men in three columns, most of them from Te

We are now down in the lowlands, where it can be warm even at this time of year. The soil is all red clay, which sticks to you whether its mud or dust. After a day's march, you can't tell who started off white and who red, because everybody has turned clay-colored.

Nothing seems to be happening on the Canadian border. I suppose the strengths on the lake and on land are too evenly matched. I begin to doubt that the War Hawks were as smart as they thought they were. A war they thought would win us Canada may lose us even territory we had under the Peace of Paris thirty years ago!

A messenger in-General Jackson will be joining us in two days, and is sending word ahead to Sava