The Big Brother | Page 2

were so built as to enclose several acres
each, and strong block houses inside, furnished additional protection.
Into these forts there came men, women, and children, from all parts of
the country, each bringing as much food as possible, and each willing
to lend a hand to the common defence and the common support.
On the 30th of August, the Indians attacked Fort Mims, one of the
largest of the stockade stations, and after a desperate battle destroyed it,
killing all but seventeen of the five hundred and fifty people who were
living in it. The news of this terrible slaughter quickly spread over the
country, and everybody knew now that a general war had begun, in
which the Indians meant to destroy the whites utterly, not sparing even
the youngest children.
Those who had remained on their farms now flocked in great numbers
to the forts, and every effort was made to strengthen the defences at all
points. The men, including all the boys who were large enough to point

a gun and pull a trigger, were organized into companies and assigned to
port-holes, in order that each might know where to go to do his part of
the fighting whenever the Indians should come. Even those of the
women who knew how to shoot, insisted upon being provided with
guns and assigned to posts of duty. There was not only no use in
flinching, but every one of them knew that whenever the fort should be
attacked the only question to be decided was, "Shall we beat the
savages off, or shall every man woman and child of us be butchered?"
They could not run away, for there was nowhere to run, except into the
hands of the merciless foe. The life of every one of them was involved
in the defence of the forts, and each was, therefore, anxious to do all he
could to make the defense a successful one. Their only hope was in
desperate courage, and, being Americans, their courage was equal to
the demand made upon it. It was not a civilized war, in which
surrenders, and exchanges of prisoners, and treaties and flags of truce,
or even neutrality offered any escape. It was a savage war, in which the
Indians intended to kill all the whites, old and young, wherever they
could find them. The people in the forts knew this, and they made their
arrangements accordingly.
Now if the boys and girls who read this story will get their atlases and
turn to the map of Alabama, they will find some points, the relative
positions of which they must remember if they wish to understand fully
the happenings with which we have to do. Just below the junction of
the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, on the east side of the stream, they
will find the little town of Tensaw, and Fort Mims stood very near that
place. The peninsula formed by the two rivers above their junction is
now Clarke County, and almost exactly in its centre stands the village
of Grove Hill. A mile or two to the north-east stood Fort Sinquefield.
Fort White was several miles further west, and Fort Glass, afterwards
called Fort Madison, stood fifteen miles south, at a point about three
miles south of the present village of Suggsville. On the eastern side of
the Alabama river is the town of Claiborne, and at a point about three
miles below Claiborne the principal events of this story occurred. It
will not hurt you, boys and girls, to learn a little accurate geography, by
looking up these places before going on with the story, and if I were
your schoolmaster, instead of your story teller, I should stop here to

advise you always to look on the map for every town, river, lake,
mountain or other geographical thing mentioned in any book or paper
you read. I would advise you, too, if I were your schoolmaster, to add
up all the figures given in books and newspapers, to see if the writers
have made any mistakes; and it is a good plan too, to go at once to the
dictionary when you meet a word you do not quite comprehend, or to
the encyclopædia or history, or whatever else is handy, whenever you
read about anything and would like to know more about it. I say I
should stop here to give you some such advice as this, if I were your
schoolmaster. As I am not, however, I must go on with my story
instead.
Within a mile or two of Fort Sinquefield lived a gentleman named
Hardwicke. He was a widower with three children. Sam, the oldest of
the three, was nearly seventeen; Tommy was eleven, and a little girl of
seven years, named Judith, but called