1812: The Rivers of War Read online

  THE

  RIVERS

  OF

  WAR

  ERIC FLINT

  BALLANTINE BOOKS

  New York

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map: The United States in 1812

  Map: The Battle of Horseshoe Bend

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  Part I: THE TALLAPOOSA

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part II: THE NIAGARA

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part III: THE TENNESSEE

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part IV: THE POTOMAC

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Part V: THE MISSISSIPPI

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Also by Eric Flint

  Copyright

  “To Quatie, who gave her blanket”

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  American Characters

  JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: U.S. negotiator at the peace talks with the British being held in the Belgian city of Ghent; son of John Adams, the second president of the United States.

  JOHN ARMSTRONG: U.S. secretary of war.

  CHARLES BALL: Freedman; U.S. Navy gunner.

  JOSHUA BARNEY: Commodore, U.S. Navy.

  JACOB BROWN: U.S. general in command of the Army of the Niagara.

  JOHN COFFEE: A close friend and associate of Andrew Jackson, as well as his top subordinate officer.

  HENRY CROWELL: Freedman; teamster, owning his own wagon.

  PATRICK DRISCOL: Sergeant, U.S. Army.

  SAM HOUSTON: Ensign in the Thirty-ninth U.S. Infantry; adopted son of the Cherokee chief John Jolly; his Cherokee name was Colonneh, which means “The Raven.”

  ANDREW JACKSON: Commanding general of the Tennessee militia; later, major general in the regular U.S. Army, in command of U.S. forces in the southern theater in the War of 1812.

  FRANCIS SCOTT KEY: Lawyer and poet.

  MARIE LAVEAU: New Orleans voudou queen.

  JAMES MADISON: President of the United States.

  ANTHONY MCPARLAND: Private, U.S. Army.

  JAMES MONROE: U.S. secretary of state.

  LEMUEL MONTGOMERY: Major in the Thirty-ninth U.S. infantry; personal friend of Andrew Jackson.

  DAVID MORGAN: Brigadier general; commander of U.S. forces on the west bank of the Mississippi River in the New Orleans campaign.

  DANIEL PATTERSON: Commodore, U.S. Navy; in command of American naval forces during the New Orleans campaign.

  JOHN PENDLETON: Corporal in the Baltimore United Volunteers, a militia dragoon unit.

  JOHN REID: Andrew Jackson’s aide.

  WINFIELD SCOTT: Brigadier general, U.S. Army; Brown’s top subordinate officer.

  WILLIAMS SIMMONS: Accountant, formerly employed in the War Department.

  WILLIAM WINDER: Brigadier general, U.S. Army, in command of the defense of Washington, D.C.

  Indian Characters

  THE RIDGE: A major Cherokee chief; took the name Major Ridge after the battle of the Horseshoe Bend.

  JAMES AND JOHN ROGERS: Tiana Ross’s half brothers, nephews of chief John Jolly.

  CAPTAIN JOHN ROGERS: Father of Tiana, James, and John; although a Scots-American, he was an informal member of the Cherokee tribe and adviser to John Jolly; his nickname was “Hell-Fire Jack.”

  TIANA ROGERS: Niece of Cherokee chief John Jolly.

  JOHN ROSS: Young Cherokee leader; very influential in the tribe, although not a chief.

  SEQUOYAH: Cherokee warrior; developer of the Cherokee written language.

  NANCY WARD: Leader of the Cherokee women’s council, holding the title of Ghighua, “War Woman” or “Beloved Woman.”

  WILLIAM WEATHERFORD: Principal war leader of the Red Stick faction of the Creeks during the Creek War; also known as Chief Red Eagle.

  British Characters

  SIR ALEXANDER COCHRANE: Vice admiral, in top command of Britain’s operations against the U.S. south of Canada.

  GEORGE COCKBURN: Rear admiral, British navy.

  SAMUEL GIBBS: Major general; Pakenham’s top subordinate.

  JAMES MONEY: Captain, Royal Marines.

  THOMAS MULLINS: Lieutenant colonel; commander of the Forty-fourth Foot Regiment.

  SIR EDWARD PAKENHAM: Major general; replaces Robert Ross as commander of British land forces in the New Orleans campaign.

  ROBERT RENNIE: Colonel; commander of the Forty-third Light Infantry.

  PHINEAS RIALL: Major general, commander of British forces on the Niagara front.

  ROBERT ROSS: Major general, commander of British army forces in the Chesapeake Bay campaign.

  WILLIAM THORNTON: Colonel, in command of the Eighty-fifth Foot Regiment.

  PROLOGUE

  MAY 30, 1806

  Harrison’s Mill

  Logan County, Kentucky

  The duel was to be held just across the state line in Kentucky. The government of Tennessee would enjoy the luxury of looking the other way. Although the illegal affair involved some of its more prominent citizens, their activities would be taking place outside its legal jurisdiction.

  Kentucky would do the same, of course, simply because the perpetrators would be out of the state as soon as it was over. And they were all a bunch of cussed Tennesseans, anyway.

  The first group was in high spirits as they made their way to the agreed-upon dueling ground.

  “Twenty-four feet, you say?” asked Charles Dickinson, who was to be one of the principals in the duel. He said it with a smile on his face; as well he might, since it was a pointless question. He’d already asked it a dozen times that morning, and received the same answer every time.

  Dickinson had finished reloading his pistol. He waved it toward a nearby tree. “That tree looks to be standing about eight paces away. Pick a leaf, gentlemen, if you would.”

  His companions—half a dozen of the “gay blades of Nashville,” as the newspapers liked to call them—were feeling just as festive as Dickinson. After a short and energetic wrangle, they settled upon a particular and distinctive leaf.

  No sooner had they done so than the pistol in Dickinson’s hand came up, quickly and smoothly. The gun fired, and the leaf fluttered to the ground. Dickinson’s shot had severed the stem.

  By contrast, the mood of the other party was grim.

  “You don’t stand a chance against him,” stated the principal’s second, General Thomas Overton. “Dickinson’s probably the best shot in the whole of Tennessee.”

  His companion, a fellow general of the Tenne
ssee militia, nodded silently. The nod was somewhat on the jerky side, though the man showed no sign of nervousness. His bony head was perched atop a narrow neck, which connected it to a slender body that looked to be all bone and gristle.

  “I’ll have to take the first shot,” he declared. “No point trying to beat Dickinson there.”

  Overton winced. “You may very well not survive that first shot,” he observed bleakly.

  The principal shrugged. “Oh, I think I’ll be all right. Long enough, anyway. And I don’t see where I’ve got any choice, anyhow. I said I’d kill the bastard, and I intend to be true to my word. Whatever it takes.”

  The surgeon who accompanied the two generals said nothing. He didn’t even wince, although he’d be the one who’d have to keep the general alive afterward, if that was possible.

  There was no point in wincing. A man might as well wince at the movement of the tides.

  Once both parties had arrived at the dueling ground, the lots were drawn. Dickinson’s second, Dr. Hanson Catlett, won the choice of position. Overton would have the count.

  There was no point in delaying the affair. As soon as the principals had taken their positions, at the twenty-four-foot distance they’d agreed upon, Overton’s voice rang out.

  “Are you ready?”

  “I am ready,” Dickinson replied cheerfully.

  “I am ready,” came the stolid voice of his opponent.

  “Fere!” cried Overton, pronouncing the word in his old-country accent.

  Dickinson’s pistol came up like a streaking lizard. The gun fired the instant it bore on the target.

  The Tennessee general hadn’t even lifted his firearm yet. A puff of dust rose from the breast of his coat. He staggered back a couple of paces, clenching his teeth. Slowly, he raised his left hand and pressed it to his chest.

  But he never lost his grip on the pistol in his right hand.

  Dickinson gaped, drawing back a step. “Great God!” he cried out. “Did I miss him?”

  “Back to the mark, sir!” roared Overton. He raised his own pistol and aimed it at Dickinson. “Back to the mark, I say!”

  Dickinson’s face went blank. He stepped forward and resumed his position at the mark, his pistol now lowered to his side. He’d had his shot, and by custom, he had to wait his opponent’s return.

  All eyes moved to the opponent. The situation was clear. Honor had been satisfied, beyond any shadow of a doubt. A magnanimous man would respond by refusing the shot, or simply firing into the air.

  This particular Tennessee general was already famous for any number of things. Magnanimity was not one of them. Slowly and deliberately, he raised his pistol and took aim. He squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing, beyond the slight click as the hammer stopped at half cock.

  Everyone held their breath. What would the general do now?

  His companions, who knew him very well, didn’t hold their breath for more than a second.

  The general drew back the hammer and fired again.

  Dickinson reeled, struck below the ribs.

  His friends leaped to his side, catching him even before he fell. They lowered him to the ground and began stripping off his coat. Blood was spilling everywhere.

  “Passed right through him!” one of them called out. “He’s bleeding buckets!”

  Overton strode over to the wounded man, but the surgeon didn’t bother to follow. From his experience, he knew Dickinson would die from such a wound, no matter what anyone did. And he had his own principal to attend to.

  “Let me see your wound, General,” he said quietly. “You were hit, I believe?”

  The general took his eyes off the sight of his opponent, lying there on the ground. As always, the surgeon was struck by the color of those eyes. A sort of bright blue that wasn’t particularly pale, but still always reminded him of ice.

  The blue eyes were startled now. “I believe he did pink me a little. Forgot all about it.”

  He opened the coat. After some probing, the surgeon determined that Dickinson’s bullet had broken two ribs and was buried somewhere in the general’s chest.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to remove it. It’ll be too close to your heart.”

  The general shrugged, without even wincing at the pain that movement must have caused him. “I’ll just have to live with it, then.”

  Overton left the group of men clustered around the fallen Dickinson and walked back. “He won’t want anything more of you, General. He’ll be dead by tomorrow.”

  He then took the general by the arm and began leading him away. As he did so, two of Dickinson’s companions rose from the shattered body and came charging toward them. Overton half raised his pistol by way of warning.

  But the two men, though furious, were not armed. Or, at least, they didn’t have any pistols in their hands.

  “That was ungallant, sir!” one of them cried. “Ungallant, I say!”

  The general glared at him. Before he could speak, though, the other man joined in.

  “And you may be sure that we will publish a report on this affair! There will be a scandal! Be sure of it, sir! Charles Dickinson is a popular man in Nashville!”

  “Publish what you will,” snarled the general, “but I caution you not to publish anything like Dickinson did, or I’ll challenge you, too.”

  Then the pain from his wound caused his teeth to clench, for a moment. The general’s long and gaunt jaws lent themselves well to teeth clenching.

  “He insulted my wife, once,” he continued. “I let that pass after he apologized, since he’d spoken the words while drunk in a tavern. But then he called me a coward, and a blackguard, and a worthless scoundrel, and did so in print. Be careful, sirs, I urge you.”

  The general turned away, then, finally allowing Overton to guide him off the killing field.

  One of Dickinson’s companions looked to the surgeon. “It was ungallant, sir. I say it again.”

  The surgeon spread his hands. The gesture wasn’t a pacific one, just a recognition of reality.

  “He said he’d kill Dickinson, and he did. Even—deliberately, mind you—took the first shot in order to do it. What did you expect from him, sir? He is Andrew Jackson. Such is the nature of the man.”

  Part I

  THE TALLAPOOSA

  CHAPTER 1

  FEBRUARY 6, 1814

  Fort Strother, Mississippi Territory

  The first time Sam Houston set eyes on Andrew Jackson, the general’s left arm was in a sling, and he was losing his temper.

  “Do I make myself clear, sir?”

  Jackson’s eyes were like small blue volcanoes erupting under bushy blond eyebrows and an even bushier head of sandy-gray hair. The scar on his forehead actually seemed to be throbbing.

  Sam had heard tales about that scar. Supposedly, it had been put there decades ago, during the Revolution, by a British officer. After seizing the home occupied by Jackson and his family in the Carolinas, the Redcoat had ordered a thirteen-year-old Jackson to shine his boots. Jackson had flat refused, and hadn’t changed his mind even after the officer slashed him with a saber.

  When he’d first heard the story, Sam had been skeptical. Now, watching Jackson with his own two eyes, he didn’t doubt it any longer. The general’s jaws were clenched, his bony fists were clenched, his whipcord body was clenched. He seemed ready to jump right out of his uniform and start pummeling the officer who was facing him.

  “Answer me, blast you!” Jackson bellowed. Shrieked, rather, since he had a high-pitched voice. The general thrust his head forward so aggressively, his chin leading the way like the ram on an ancient war galley, that his fancy hat fell right off his head. The two-cornered general’s hat landed on its side, like a shipwreck on a reef. Jackson paid no attention to the mishap.

  The officer who was facing him—somebody in the Tennessee militia, judging from the uniform—was doing his level best not to wilt under Jackson’s fury. But his level best . . .

/>   Wasn’t good enough. Not even close.

  The man sidled backward a step, his eyes avoiding Jackson’s accusing gaze. “Tarnation, General,” he muttered, “you can’t just—”

  “Yes, sir, I can! And, yes, sir—I most certainly will! I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again!”

  For the first time, Jackson seemed to catch sight of the two officers who had entered his command tent. He glared at General John Coffee first. But the glare was fleeting, nothing more than a split second’s reflex.

  “Coffee,” he stated tersely. The greeting had an approving air to it, from what Sam could tell.

  But then the glare turned on Sam himself, so he didn’t have any time to ponder the matter.

  It was quite a glare, too. Easily worthy of one of the heroes in Sam’s treasured Iliad. Maybe not quite up to the standards of Achilles, but certainly the equal of anything Agamemnon or Menelaus could have managed.

  “And you, sir!” the general barked. “You’re wearing the uniform of a regular soldier in the army of the United States of America. Can I assume that you will follow orders?”

  The general’s eyes flicked to the militia officer. Jackson said nothing, but the glance alone was enough to make clear what he thought of the fellow.

  Sam might have been amused, except he was starting to become angry himself. He didn’t like bullies, never had, and the general looked to be about as bad a bully as he’d ever encountered.

  “Yes, sir,” he said stiffly, straightening up to his full height of six feet two inches. “I took the oath and I’ll obey orders. Presuming the orders are lawful, that is.”

  With that, he fell silent. For a moment, it looked to Sam as if the general would literally explode. His pale face seemed so suffused with blood and fury that his temples threatened to burst. Both of them were throbbing now.

  Then, to Sam’s surprise, the general grunted a little laugh. “Ha! Got some backbone, do you? Good.”

  Jackson pointed a stiff finger at the target of his rage. “The issue in question here, young ensign, is whether or not these miserable militiamen will be allowed to desert their country in its time of need. I have informed this—this—this—individual that I will have shot any militiaman who attempts to desert.”