Last in Their Class. James Robbins

THE TIME OF THE DADE MASSACRE, Lieutenant William W. Morris of the Fourth Artillery was helping escort emigrant Indians to the Trans-Mississippi. Morris was born in Ballston Springs, New York, in 1801. His grandfather, Lewis, was a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His great-uncle Gouverneur Morris also served in the Continental Congress and later helped draft the U.S. Constitution. William Morris entered West Point in 1815 and graduated in 1820, the Goat of his class. He then served in a variety of posts, notably being promoted for bravery at a battle with Arikara Indians in August 1823, serving in garrison in Charleston Harbor during South Carolina’s nullification crisis, and most recently escorting emigrant Indians to the Trans-Mississippi. The duty was difficult and required moving bands numbering in some cases thousands of people over hundreds of miles on foot. Roads were poor, locals hostile, supplies uncertain, and the Indians totally unprepared for the trials they faced. Lieutenant John T. Sprague described the group he was taking west: “They were poor, wretchedly, and depravedly poor, many of them without a garment to cover their nakedness. . . . They left their country at a warm season of the year, thinly clad, and characteristically indifferent to their rapid approach to the rigors of a climate to which they were unaccustomed, they expended what little they had for intoxicating drinks or for some gaudy article of jewelry.”¹¹

      In August of 1836, Morris joined the newly authorized regiment of Mounted Creek Volunteers, which was being formed at Fort Mitchell, at the rank of brevet major. The use of Indian troops was not only viewed as practical (the Seminole/Creek rivalry worked both ways), it had become necessary because white volunteers were growing scarce. The first wave of excitement following the Dade Massacre had come and gone. With most of the original militiamen back on their farms, 759 Creeks joined up for one year and were “to receive the pay and emoluments and equipment of soldiers in the Army of the U.S. and such plunder as they may take from the Seminoles.” The regiment was led by Regular Army officers, and even though it was an Indian unit, competition for the officer billets was intense. Service in the volunteer regiment would give the men a chance to assume higher rank than they might otherwise enjoy, and also the opportunity to prove themselves in combat, since it was assumed that this regiment was going straight into action. The coveted colonelcy was given to John F. Lane of Kentucky, a captain in the Second Dragoons.¹² Several other West Pointers joined the unit, as well as Navy Lieutenant William M. Piercy and Lieutenant Andrew Ross of the Marine Corps.

      When Morris joined the regiment at Fort Mitchell, he saw a familiar face among the Creeks. It was David Moniac, the first Indian, first minority and first Alabaman graduate of the Military Academy. Moniac was appointed to West Point under the provisions of a 1791 treaty between the United States and the Creek Nation that provided for education for a limited number of Creek children at public expense.¹³ His father, half-Dutch Sam Manac, had been on the delegation that had met with George Washington and negotiated the treaty.¹⁴ A clerical error gave David the name “Moniac” when he entered West Point in September 1817 at age fifteen, and he kept it. He was a determined if not brilliant student (he had only recently learned to read when he arrived at the Academy), who repeated his plebe year at his own request. His name appears among the list of cadets who had complained to Congress about Sylvanus Thayer in 1819, when he stated that “my rank in class, as given by my professor, has been lowered arbitrarily and unjustly” by the Superintendent.¹⁵

      Moniac’s disciplinary record showed no serious violations, mainly absences and visiting after hours. He served briefly as a cadet NCO in his cow year, but voluntarily returned to ranks as a firstie. Above all he was famous simply for being “the Indian at West Point.” When the Corps marched to Boston in the summer of 1821 and did a pass in review for former president John Adams, Moniac was a public sensation. The aged Founding Father was not the sole center of attention for the crowd in Quincy—all along the road, people said, “Look there! There’s the Indian!” Adams gave a brief address on the topic “What Is Glory?” after which Moniac was given the opportunity to be introduced to the former president. He demurred, staying instead among the Corps, and a sympathetic Major Worth explained that Moniac was too bashful.¹⁶

      Moniac graduated next to last in the Class of 1822. He went on leave of absence in Alabama for six months, then resigned to tend to his father’s failing business. Moniac ran a farm in Baldwin County, planting cotton and raising thoroughbred racehorses. In 1828 he married Mary Powell, whose half-white cousin Billy was at the time yet to find fame as Osceola, and they had two children. In 1835, Moniac served in a regiment raised by Creek chief Opothleyahola to assist General Thomas S. Jesup in putting down resistance to the forced migration policy. Because of his background as a West Point graduate, he was made a captain in the Mounted Creek Volunteers, initially the only Indian officer.¹⁷

      In September the Creek Volunteers steamed across the Gulf to Fort Brooke, and in October they proceeded into the wilderness. The Seminoles harassed the column a few times, but the regiment did not see major action, and it linked up with General Richard K. Call’s main force on October 19. Call, the territorial governor of Florida, had taken over command in the theater after a frustrated General Scott sought transfer. That night, Lieutenant Colonel Lane visited his friend Captain Galt in his tent, chatting away cheerily and toying with his saber. He mentioned something about the heat and Galt went out to raise the tent flap. Hearing a groan, he ducked back in to discover that Lane had driven his sword through his right eye into his brain, killing himself. It was unclear whether this was a ghastly accident or Lane had committed suicide, and if the latter, why.¹⁸ The official report termed it a “melancholy death,” meaning suicide, and explained that Lane had been suffering from fever and fatigue. Lieutenant Colonel Harvey Brown, sixth in the Class of 1818, took over command.

      General Call’s approach to fighting the war was no more innovative than Scott’s. He knew there were Indian camps out in the wilderness, but did not really know where. So he sent columns into the brush with vague objectives on search-and-destroy missions, failing to find major concentrations of Indians but nevertheless scouting the terrain and at least knowing where they were not. He fought several small engagements that scattered the enemy in the usual way, and perhaps by accident began to close in on the major Seminole settlement in Wahoo Swamp. The Indians took a stand in a blocking position on the edge of dense woods, with a wide cleared field of fire. General Call set off to meet them on November 21, 1836, from a rendezvous point at Dade’s battlefield, an ominous locale but one of the few points of reference in the area. He deployed a mile-wide line of battle, with Tennessee militia on his right, regulars and Florida militia in the center. The Mounted Creek Volunteers, who had donned white turbans to distinguish themselves from the other Indians, took the left. The troops being disposed, and with no particular tactical plan other than moving forward, the line began to advance, led by Colonel B. K. Pierce.

      “We marched through the open field,” Jo Guild of the Tennessee Volunteers later wrote. “The hostile Indians were seen coming out of the edge of a large hammock, half naked, jumping and turning about, accompanied with yelling and the war-whoop.”¹⁹ The line advanced to within fifty yards of the Indian position, opened fire and charged. The Indians fired a volley in response, then fell back. The attackers pushed forward through the trees and into another open field. As the troops advanced, the ground grew muddier and the long battle line became disorganized. The Seminoles quickly regrouped at a second position behind a ten-yard-wide stream of black water and began pouring fire into the disordered American troops.

      David Moniac, who had been promoted to brevet major for bravery in a skirmish the week before, rallied the Creeks. He charged forward to try to ford the stream and outflank the Seminoles, his men following. As he entered the water, Moniac was drilled by a fusillade of musket balls. He dropped into the murky stream and sank, killed instantly. The Seminoles, seeing whom they believed to be the chief of the Creeks fall, whooped with delight. Morris and the other officers rallied the troops and a sharp contest continued at the stream bank, at point-blank range. Other forces came up some time later and the battle continued until mid-afternoon, when Seminole fire slackened. General Call chose to withdraw rather than attempt to force a crossing, since his men were tired and hungry, and darkness would come in a few hours. A party retrieved Major Moniac’s body from the dark water, and in so doing found that the stream was only three feet deep. Had the rest of the troops charged ahead after Moniac,