Civil War Articles by Julian WilliamsCapt. John Willcox Was In The Middle Of Great Conflict
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
Capt. John Willcox might have gotten his "rank" of Captain from fighting Indians but more possibly for his position as a master boat builder and navigator, pole boats being his specialty. He might have also gotten the rank for his part in the War of 1812. Anyway, he was Capt. John and the title seemed to stay with him through his colorful lifetime.
When Capt. John sent word to the Temperance community that he had a young man at his home with the top of his head missing (Littleton Burch was living but had been scalped), the settlers responded quickly and the Battle of Breakfast Branch took place shortly thereafter, reducing the numbers of whites and Indians by a few men - some say nine with others wounded.
Although the battle was not colossal by military standards, it was a big deal for the pioneers along the Ocmulgee because its example represented to them the constant threat of being annihilated by the Indians. After all, as one of the military commanders on the scene said to Governor Rabun, "they have only a river to cross." And cross it they did - quickly and often. Also, numbers didn't matter if one of the dead happened to be you or one of your kinfolk. That's when statistics take on another meaning.
It soon became crystal clear to the pioneers that the January 1818 deal that Andrew Jackson hatched - gaining a cession of south-of-the-Ocmulgee land for the settlers - didn't mean a hoot in a whirlwind to some of those Indians who did not care to leave their premises and property. They expressed this in rather graphic terms when they scalped the Burch men and then killed some of the settlers at Breakfast Branch.
That's also when Capt. John Willcox appealed to Governor Rabun who reacted quickly and who thought General Jackson would do the same. As we remember, General Jackson did not even give an indication he would come back to the Ocmulgee "to-reck-ly." Of course, we who have grown up in the culture know that "to-reck-ly" is not even close kin with the more expedient word, "directly." "To-reck-ly" sort of means "after a while - when, in the leisure of the same day (hopefully not longer), I will be there." It lets the bearer of the request know that the receiver will come when it is real convenient for him. Old Hickory Jackson did not even offer the courtesy of a "to-reck-ly."
Seizing upon this rebuff, Governor Rabun dispatched troops who ran into Capt. Bothwell over around where we now find Lake Blackshear (Fort Early). Capt. Obed Wright and Capt. Jacob Robinson (Roberts) wanted him to accompany them to the Chehaw village of Au-muc-cul-le to wipe out the Indians that caused the trouble at Breakfast Branch.
Again, the winds of disagreement entered the picture when Capt. Bothwell told the officers that the Chehaw village was innocent and that he would not go with them (however, probably to please the Governor, he let some of his men go).
What took place next would probably even make John Willcox's hair stand up. The military detachment ran into a man with a cow which bore the brand of a Telfair County owner. This reinforced the notion of Captains Wright and Robinson that they were going to destroy the right village - the one with the guilty Indians. They were further reinforced in their thinking by a local report that the evil chief Hopaunee was in the village and was ruling it. They remained resolute in their aim to destroy Au-muc-cul-le.
And destroy it they did. They burned some of the buildings when some of the Indians started shooting. It was said the old disabled chief Howard of the village (not Hopaunee) came out with a white flag of surrender and they killed him also. The report was that about forty or fifty or more of the villagers were slain. (Later this figure was found to be inflated considerably.)
Naturally, when General Jackson heard of the atrocity he flew hot and let Governor Rabun know it in no uncertain terms:
After chewing the Governor out about the massacre, he added: "You, sir, as Governor of a State within my military division have no right to give a military order whilst I am in the field --- Captain Wright must be prosecuted and punished for his outrageous murder --- I call upon you as Governor of Georgia to aid into effect my order for his arrest and confinement ..."
Rabun received the missile from Jackson and was not in a very good mood himself when he returned fire: "You may rest assured, that, if the savages continue their depredations on our unprotected frontier, I shall think and act for myself in that respect. You demand that Captain Wright be delivered in irons to your agent, Major Davis. If you, sir, are unacquainted with the fact, I beg leave to inform you, that Captain Wright was not under your command ..."
John Willcox and his pioneer neighbors weren't getting much help from General Jackson but they were certainly being supported by their governor, William Rabun. Not to mention General John Clark, who was helping Rabun free Capt. Wright so he could flee to Cuba. Clark had a place near Jacksonville and was going to help his neighbors in any way possible.
Aimed at Willcox and his neighbors, Andrew Jackson then made this thrust at Governor Rabun: "Your letter -- could not have reached me in time to produce the object required. 'The situation of our bleeding frontiers' at that time was magnified by the apprehensions of a few frontier settlers, and those who had not understanding enough to penetrate the designs of my operations."
Rabun shot back: "It would seem that the laurels expected in Florida was the object that accelerated you more than the protection of the 'ignorant Georgians.'"
With this the heated exchange ended but only after, in the words of historian Merton Coulter, the following had resulted:
"Strangely enough, the Chehaw affair has gone almost entirely neglected in American history, although it flared up at the time and created a great emotional outburst in Georgia; led to a hot and intemperate correspondence between the governor of Georgia and Andrew Jackson; engaged the attention of President James Monroe, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, and Attorney-General William Wirt; upset Congress for a spell; made issues of state rights and of military versus civil authority; and led the chief actor (Wright) who created that affair to flee the country and never to be heard of again."
And jokester that he was, Capt. John Willcox probably chuckled when he realized that only a couple or three years before, Governor William Rabun, then President of the Senate, had nonchalantly signed the charter of Jacksonville, Georgia (1815), naming it for Andrew Jackson, a man with whom he was destined to do a battle of words and letters, in a national controversy, that started when Capt. John Willcox and his neighbors called for help after The Battle of Breakfast Branch.
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;
History of Telfair County (1807-1987);
History of Georgia by Merton Coulter;
info furnished by Gertrude Wilcox Williams and Diane Williams Rogers and others;
various other sources.
