When the Indians attempted to enter the inner enclosure, they were stopped by a fire through the loop-holes in the partition. Five of their prophets, who had proclaimed that their charms and incantations rendered the American bullets harmless, all fell dead at the first discharge. This produced a temporary check, but new swarms of the naked savages came up, and a desperate fight through the loop-holes was maintained for several hours. The soldiers stood manfully at their posts, were assisted by some of the women and boys, and killed a large number of the Indians, who, on the other hand, were sure of hitting somebody whenever they fired into the crowded enclosure. Numbers of the red-skins were constantly dancing, hooting, and { 182}yelling around the fort, many of whom were shot by the old men of the garrison, who had ascended to the attic of the largest house and cut holes in the roof.
The enemy were getting tired of this costly work, when Weathersford came up, exhorted them to new efforts, and directed fire-tipped arrows to be shot into the fort. In a short time the buildings were in flames, and the miserable inmates, driven by the heat, were huddled in one corner, when the Indians burst in and rapidly completed the massacre. Children were taken by the heels, and their brains dashed out against the walls; women were butchered in a manner unknown since the wars of the ancient Jews; a few Negroes were kept for slaves, but not one white person was left alive--excepting twelve, who had secretly cut an opening through the stockade and escaped by way of the lake. Of the five hundred and fifty-three persons in the fort at noon, at least four hundred perished before night; and it was believed that about as many of the Indians had been killed or wounded.
The tidings of this massacre of course excited horror and indignation in every part of the country, but nowhere met so prompt and practical a response as in Tennessee. The Legislature of that { 183}State called for thirty-five hundred volunteers--in addition to fifteen hundred whom she had already enrolled in the service of the general Government--voted an appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars, and placed them under command of General Andrew Jackson. * To General John Cocke was entrusted the work of gathering the troops from East Tennessee, and providing subsistence for the whole. Fayetteville was appointed as the general rendezvous, and Colonel John Coffee was sent forward to Huntsville, Alabama, with a cavalry force of five hundred men, which by the time he arrived there was increased to thirteen hundred.