bwanton] EARL'S HISTORY OF THE CREEK INDIANS 121 
Branch of the ( luUabooche [Chattahoochee], In the Morning, jusl before I'-reakof Day 
(when Indians are accustomed to make their Attacks) the Creeks Btirring up their 
Fires drew back at a Little Distance leaving their Blankets by the Fires in the very 
same order as they had slept. Immediately alter the Spaniards and Apalatchees (as 
was expected I coming on to attack them, fired and run in upon the Blankets. There- 
upon the Creeks rushing forth fell on them, killed and took the greatest Part, and 
entirely rented them. To this Stratagt m was owing the Defeat of the then intend) d 
Design. 1 
Shortly after this affair, in the winter of 1703^4, occurred the great 
Apalachee disaster, the invasion of Apalachia hy Col. Moore 
with a body of 50 volunteers from South Carolina and 1,000 Creek 
auxiliaries, and the almost complete breaking up of the Apalachee 
Nation. 'Hie best account of this is printed in the second volume 
of Carroll's Historical Collections of South Carolina 2 under the fol- 
lowing heading: "An Account of What the Army Did, under the 
Command of Col. Moore, in His Expedition Last Winter, against 
the Spaniards and Spanish Indians in a Letter from the Said Col. 
Moore to the Governor of Carolina. Printed in the Boston News, 
May 1, 170 1." It runs as follows: 
To the Governor of Carolina: 
May it please your honour to accept of this short narrative of whatl, withthearmy 
under my command, have been doing since my departure from the Ockomulgee, on 
the 19th ei December [1703]. 
On the 1 1th of December we came to a town, and strong and almost regular fort, 
about Sun rising called Ayai ill- . At our first approach the Indians in it fired and 
shot arrows at us briskly; from which we sheltered ourselves under the side of a great 
Mud-walled house, till we could take a view of the fort, and consider of the best way 
of assaulting it: which we concluded to be, by breaking the church door, which 
made a part of the fort, with axes. I no sooner proposed this, but my men readily 
undertook it: ran up to it briskly (the enemy at the same time shooting at them), 
were beaten off without effecting it. and fourteen white men wounded. Two hours 
alter that we thought fit to attempt the burning of the church, which we did. three 
or four Indian- assisting us. The Indians obstinately defending themselves, killed 
us two men, viz. Francis Plowden and Thomas Dale. After we were in their fort, 
a fryar, the only white in it. came forth and begged mercy. In this we took about 
twenty-six men alive, and fifty-eighl women and children. The Indians took about 
as many more of each sort. The fryar told us we killed, in the two storms of the fort, 
twenty-five men. 
The next morning the captain of St. Lewis Fort, with twenty-three men and four 
hundred Indians, came to fight us, which we did ; beat him; took him and eight of his 
men prisoners; and, as the Indians, which say it, told us, killed five or six whites. We 
have a particular account from our Indians of one hundred and sixty-eight Indian men 
killed and taken in the fight: but the Apalatchia Indians say they lost two hundred, 
which we have reason to believe to be the least. Capt. John Bellinger, fighting bravely 
at the head of our men was killed at my foot. Capt. Fox dyed of a wound given him at 
the first storming of the fort . Two days after, I sent to the cassique of the Ibitachka, 
1 Asset forth in "Statements Made in the Introduction to the Report on General Oglethorpe's Expedi- 
tion to St. Augustine" i printed in Carroll's Historical Collections oi South Carolina, vol. n. p. 351). 
J Pp. 570-576. 
3 Then, is evidently a mistake in this date, which should be the 9th instead of the 19th. 
