Civil War Articles by Julian WilliamsCapt. John Willcox And The Battle Of Breakfast Branch Started Some Big Headlines
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
Well, a fellow never really anticipates getting into the news - especially the national news. Because many times, getting into the news is not a good thing. Certainly, Capt. John Willcox wasn't thinking of making any kind of news as he watched the rain on that February day in 1818. He just wished the rain would let up a little. As it was, he probably imagined half his lumber and boat yard were floating down the river to Darien. Boy, that had been a rain and even old General Andrew Jackson, miserably holed up in a fort at Hartford, Georgia, just up the swollen Ocmulgee River, was ranting and raving because he couldn't cross over to do battle with the Indians.
No one knows whether he ever got down as far as Jacksonville, Georgia, the little town named for him just a little over two years earlier. He should have made an effort to get down there. He would probably have liked the place. After all, it was a stop-in and sometimes residence place for soon-to-be Governor John Clark and his lawyer brother, Gibson. They seemed to like it right well - except when Gibson was shooting at people. They were about as rough around the edges as General Jackson. A little earlier, John Clark had horsewhipped Judge Tait through the streets of Milledgeville because of a political rivalry that existed between Clark and William H. Crawford. Things wound up with Clark wounding Crawford in a duel. The Clarks probably needed to come down to Jacksonville for a vacation from all their other activities. But, both men owned land there and evidently enjoyed the surroundings.
Well, the rain let up and General Jackson crossed the Ocmulgee River. So did a couple of John Willcox's neighbors - Joseph Burch and his boy, Littleton, sometimes called Hugh. Now, what they were doing across that river in the environs of a bunch of angry Indians who didn't like the mistreatment they had received, nobody really knows. Some said they were camping and some said they were building a house. They might have doing both. Neither was a good excuse as far as the Indians were concerned because either reason represented encroachment upon their land. Land they were desperately trying to hang onto despite the fact that General Jackson, some Georgians and others were trying to gobble it up as fast as possible with forced treaties and land cessions.
But General Jackson was hard to figure out. He was a man of opposites. While he seemed to hate the Indians with a passion, he warmed up to certain ones of them who befriended him. He even took some of them into his fold as warriors. In fact, he would never have won the Battle of Horseshoe Bend had it not been for the Indians. In fact, he would have lost his life to a tomahawk had not Chief Junaluska sunk his own tomahawk into the head of the offending Indian who was about to chop up The General.
Back to Joseph and Littleton Burch. They didn't fare well at all with the angry Indians. The Indians killed the elder man and Littleton played dead after the Indians scalped him. It is certainly a tribute to a young man who could lie there, still as dead, with the top of his head gone, with Indians dancing around to see if he moved any.
Lucky for him the Indians moved on and he fashioned a poultice of moss for his profusely bleeding head and swam the Ocmulgee River. He groped his way through the pain and darkness of the night to the house of a man who would help him. In fact, this man would help anybody if you gave him half a chance. The man was none other than John Willcox. The old captain ran his life like he did his boat yard - he was right there to take your order. And the order of this night and the next day was taking care of this young hurt fellow and to gather up a search party at daylight to go after his attackers. John Willcox was able to do this as he summoned men up and down the banks of the river to meet at Fort Adams (near the present-day Old Concord Cemetery between Jacksonville and Rhine). Once assembled they crossed the river and tracked the Indians until they found them. This was around where present-day Bowen's Mill is located.
After locating the Indians, John Willcox and his men probably had second thoughts about the great undertaking. There were a heap more Indians than there were settlers and the Indians weren't holding bows and arrows. They were shooting rifles and they were hitting their targets pretty well. The battle was hot and heavy for a while and the settlers were forced to retreat from the unfavorable odds presented them. In all this process some were killed and some were wounded. John Willcox's son was shot but Nat Statham and another fellow carried the boy to the river and the escape was made. The wounded youth would be heard from again - he became the famous Major General Mark Lea Willcox, son of Capt. John. Capt. John probably thought he was about to lose his son that day at what came to be known as The Battle of Breakfast Branch. It was called that because when the settlers found the Indians they were eating breakfast.
So now the whole river community was alarmed again because the Indians were back on the warpath and the men who wore the war paint were scaring the daylights out of everyone who valued life and limb and the preservation of their families and property.
So they sent out a quick call for help and expected a quick answer. They appealed to Governor William Rabun and he quickly sent a message to General Andrew Jackson to come back to the Ocmulgee around Pulaski and Telfair counties and protect the settlers along that frontier. That's when the "quick" ended. General Jackson was not about to turn around and retrace his steps to that forsaken place he had just left. All he could remember were the mosquitoes and the water and the mud and the boredom. He didn't want anymore of that for a while.
Besides that, he had stopped off at friendly Chehaw Town and as circumstances dictated, found the Indians in as good a mood as his. So, after exchanging amenities and a promise to provide them protection, he welcomed forty braves from that village who traveled with him to do battle with the unfriendly Seminoles.
Would he go back to the Ocmulgee because John Willcox and a bunch of folks wanted protection against the Indians? No, sir, he wouldn't go back. He wanted to drive those Seminoles into oblivion and then go over and whack the daylights out of the Spanish who still held Amelia Island. Not only would he not go back, he wouldn't even answer Governor Rabun!
But, he hadn't heard the last of Governor Rabun or the men from the Ocmulgee frontier. And we will continue with that story next time. Because the headlines are coming.
Credits:
Telfair History Book, 1807-1987;
Willcox Family History by Martha Albertson;
John Willcox (1728-1793) by Historical Research Company;
Pioneer Days Along the Ocmulgee by Fussell Chalker;
info furnished by Gertrude Wilcox Williams and Diane Williams Rogers and others;
various other sources.
