1824: The Arkansas War

CHAPTER 12

The Mississippi River, near Natchez, Mississippi

Robert Ross and his son watched the Kentucky flatboat men carrying wood from the stacks on shore into the steamboat. They seemed to be carrying out the labor even more energetically than usual.

"Amazing, really," David commented. "The rest of the time they barely move from their accommodations on deck. And that, only to flip another card or unstopper a jug of whiskey."

Anthony McParland was standing next to them. "It's part of their contract," he explained, smiling slightly. "They bring their goods downriver on rafts, just using the current. In New Orleans, the rafts are broken up, and the wood is sold along with whatever they were carrying on them. They get this free passage back upriver-but they have to do the labor of hauling the wood into the boiler room."

"And who cuts and stacks the wood in the first place?" Robert asked, eyeing the rapidly diminishing pile of logs at the other end of the little pier reaching out into the Mississippi.

"Here? Choctaws, mostly. Elsewhere, it'd be poor white woodcutting families."

David frowned. "I thought the Choctaws had moved to the Confederacy also."

"Only maybe a third of the tribe. The rest are being stubborn, claiming-which is true enough-that they never signed the Treaty of Oothcaloga."

David was still frowning. "Is there going to be trouble over that?"

McParland's smile lost some of its amusement. "Be better to say there is trouble over it. Has been for years, now. And it's been getting worse. More settlers keep moving into Mississippi, and with Crittenden and his mob stirring up everybody:

"Chief Pushmataha is a damn fool, if you ask me," Anthony continued. "Well, not that, I guess. He's canny, by all accounts, but he's getting old. He and his Choctaws have even less chance of holding back the tide than the Cherokees and Creeks did in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. And there's a big chunk of land still set aside for them in the Confederacy, between the Canadian and the Red rivers. That's where those of 'em who've moved already have settled. But if the rest of the Choctaws don't get there pretty soon, they'll start seeing the land gobbled up."

"I thought white people weren't-"

McParland shook his head. "Not by white people. Other Indians. Caddos and Quapaws, mostly. They're already moving into the area, since they're being pushed out of Louisiana."

David's frown now seemed permanently fixed in place. Like most nineteen-year-olds, he preferred the world to be a neatly organized and categorized place. "Caddos and Quapaws aren't signatories to the treaty, either," he pointed out.

The young Confederate captain shrugged. "No, they're not. Ask them if they care. Louisiana's making it more difficult for them to stay every year-and there's all that open territory over there on the other side of the Red River. Most Indian tribes are organized along clan lines. If their clan didn't make an agreement, they figure they're not bound by it-much less to anybody who is."

"There will be trouble there as well, then," David predicted sagely.

McParland chuckled. "No, there is trouble there, already. Just had another clash between some Choctaws and Caddos two months ago, I heard. Not to mention that neither the Osage nor the Comanches figure any of these tribes from across the Mississippi got any business at all in the area. Those fights are pretty much constant, now."

Robert had been listening to the exchange with only half his mind. He'd been paying more attention to the actions of the flatboat men.

"Something's amiss, I believe," he said suddenly. He pointed to the men coming back-even more hurriedly than usual, it seemed-across the pier onto the boat.

McParland studied their movements for a moment before pushing himself away from the rail. "Do believe you're right. I'll find out."

He was back less than five minutes later, with no trace of amusement left on his face.

"They found four bodies in one of the woodpiles. Choctaws. Been scalped and skinned. Two men, a child, and a woman. The woman had also-" He glanced at David. "Well, never mind."

"Skinned?" David's eyes were wide.

"Yeah, skinned. Might have been done by settlers, but:" McParland's expression was grim. "Whoever did it took their time about it. That's not likely to have been settlers. Clashes between them and Indians don't generally last too long, since as a rule both sides never have all that many men, and they don't want to risk a counterattack. A quick scalping, and they leave. Besides, there were a lot of prints in the area." He pointed to the lush growth of palmettos and pawpaws that shielded the woods beyond from easy view. "That pile was back there a ways, which is why we didn't see it. Some of the flatboat men are pretty fair trackers. They think a lot of men were involved."

All three of them stared into the woods.

"I think it's Crittenden's men," McParland stated. "They must have left Alexandria sooner than we thought they would. I guess getting those guns and some cannons made them bold-like."

The steamboat was pulling away from the pier. David's eyes followed its course to the north. "But Arkansas is:"

"Still a long ways away," Anthony concluded for him. "Yeah, I know. But it'd be just like that crowd to figure on hounding the Choctaws along the way. They want land in northern Mississippi just as much as in Arkansas. Anywhere in the Delta, where cotton plantations can be set up. There's a lot of money in cotton, now, since Whitney made that machine of his."

Robert nodded. "It's an old pattern. The Crusaders savaged a lot of Jewish communities on their way to the Holy Land. Did more killing in the ghettos, some of them, than they did in the Levant. If they ever got there at all, which some of them didn't. The whole Fourth Crusade stopped at Constantinople after sacking it."

His own expression was grim. "War's never easy on neutrals, as a rule."

"It's an outrage," David proclaimed.

Robert's jaws were set. "Yes, it is. What concerns me more, however, is what the impact of it'll be. Up there." He used his chin to point to the north.

His son looked at him. "What do you mean, Father?"

"You've never met Patrick Driscol, David. He's a harsh man at any time. If this is indeed Crittenden's men, they'll be conducting outrages all the way upriver. Hand something like that to Patrick Driscol-the man who, as a boy, hid from the massacres in Ireland in '98-and he'll not react well. Not well at all."

"I see. You're afraid he'll be hotheaded."

Robert took a deep breath. "No, not that. Patrick is a man given to rage, but it's a very cold sort of thing. He'll not lose control, whatever else."

A subtle shift in McParland's expression made it clear that the young captain understood him. "Ah," he said. Then, a moment later: "Well, yes. Not that he'll have to stir anybody up to do it. Pretty much nobody in Arkansas is going to feel the least bit kindly to Louisiana freebooters. Even if they was behaving well, which they aren't."

"It would be a bad error," Ross stated.

McParland shrugged. "Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Sometimes the best way to set a pack of curs running is to show 'em the wolf 's teeth."

"The political ramifications-"

Abruptly, Robert broke off. There was something a bit absurd, after all, about lecturing Americans on the dynamics of American politics. Even if he was almost sure he was right.

Eliza came up onto the deck. "There's been trouble, it seems. Do we continue, or go back to New Orleans?"

She wasn't pushing for a particular answer, just inquiring.

Robert glanced at McParland. "I don't believe we have much choice, dearest. Unless we want to return on a raft. This steamboat, I'm quite sure, will be continuing north."

McParland's shoulders had become a bit stiff. "Well. Yes, I'm afraid so. The Comet is owned by the Arkansas Riverboat Company, of which the Laird-ah, Mr. Driscol-and Mr. Crowell own half the stock. Mr. Shreve won't like it much, but that was part of the arrangement."

Eliza and David frowned at him, clearly puzzled.

"What he means, dearest, is that in the event of hostilities, the boat will be pressed into Confederate service. And, it seems, hostilities have begun."

They looked at McParland.

The young captain cleared his throat. "Well. Be better to say 'Arkansas service.' Not sure John Ross or the Ridge know anything about it."

That wasn't surprising. It had already been clear to Ross, just from his long correspondence with Patrick, that the chiefdom of Arkansas wore its theoretical subordination to the Confederacy rather lightly.

As was inevitable. Of all political quandaries faced by the human race over the millennia, this was perhaps the most intractable. The Romans had an expression for it: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Without realizing it, he murmured the phrase aloud.

" 'Who will guard the guardians?' " his son translated. "That's about the Praetorian Guard, isn't it?"

His mother smiled. "Actually, no. I believe it was a remark made by the satirist Juvenal, concerning the wisdom of having eunuchs guarding women."

Ross couldn't remember, but he suspected Eliza was correct. She was very fond of the classics.

"What do eunuchs-?"

To Robert's surprise, McParland understood the point immediately. He realized again that there was really not much left of the shy, ill-educated, and uncertain teenaged soldier he remembered from years earlier.

"Pretty good assessment, sir. Yeah, the Cherokees and Creeks-the Choctaws soon, too, if I don't miss my guess-need Arkansas to buffer them against the United States. But you pays a price for that, always do. Just the way it is."

He seemed quite unconcerned about the matter. It was also now clear to Robert that McParland's allegiance had shifted completely to Arkansas. There seemed to be no animosity in the young officer toward his native United States, but also no doubt where he stood in the event of a conflict. And if that was true for a white citizen of Arkansas, how much more true would it be for its black ones?

So. A war was starting, and it would unfold as wars did. Very messily.

Memphis, Tennessee