Civil War Articles by Julian WilliamsOsceola And General Willcox Caught In Strange Chain Of Events
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
It is almost unbelievable how the fortunes and misfortunes of fate form interesting connections among men. Some of those men and connections include persons and happenings around old Jacksonville, Georgia. Some other events in other places are also connected with those of the Ocmulgee Big Bend area.
This interesting phenomenon was especially present, and traceable, in the lifetime of the early pioneers and the Indians in the early 1800's.
The settling of Georgia and Florida seemed almost to result from a chain of events that connected these personalities in unusual but significant ways.
One of the first links in this chain was forged when Indians massacred some 367 people in the compound at Ft. Mims, Alabama, in 1813. Reacting to this calamity, in the same month of that same year, General David Blackshear built a string of forts along the Ocmulgee River in Georgia.
Two of those forts were near Jacksonville, Georgia - Fort Adams at Temperance and Fort Clark at what is now the site of Blockhouse Baptist Church.
In traversing the Old River Road on which his forts were built, General Blackshear passed the home of Capt. John Willcox and his son, Mark Willcox. Remember those names - Blackshear and Willcox. Blackshear built the forts and John Willcox built the boats which carried the supplies to the army in the War of 1812.
Then, in 1818, with the Indians fully stirred up, and tired of giving up their precious lands, the Indians wounded Mark Willcox at the Battle of Breakfast Branch near Bowens Mill. At the time, he was "a lad" of about eighteen years of age. His father, Capt. John Willcox, tried to detain General Andrew Jackson who had just crossed the Ocmulgee River near the battle site. Maybe he would help protect the frontier people along the Ocmulgee. After all, he had plenty of soldiers.
But Jackson didn't turn back - he was headed for Florida to do battle with the Seminoles. Thus, General Blackshear had to do what he could to ensure survival for the pioneers on the Georgia frontier. His forts would come in handy.
General Jackson, headed for Florida, was also headed for a scene which would connect another link in this strange chain of events. Upon capturing Indians in West Florida around present-day St. Marks, an elderly Indian grandmother prevailed upon General Jackson to free her grandson and his mother. Andrew Jackson, probably remembering the unkind saber slash to his own boyish face by a British officer holding him in captivity, allowed the two to go free.
After all, according to Jackson, the Indian boy was only "a lad" in captivity. In fact, a rather pleasing looking lad, with features which supported the belief that his beautiful mother, Polly Copinger, was born of mixed parentage and that his own father might have been a Scottish trader named William Powell. Hence, the boy, at the time, was called Billy Powell.
So, about the same month that Mark Willcox was being shot by the Indians at Breakfast Branch in Georgia, a young Indian, about four years younger than Mark Willcox, was being released by General Jackson in Florida. The young boy and his mother headed in the general direction of the Okefenokee Swamp and northeastern Florida. Not back to Alabama or Oklahoma.
Young Billy Powell was born a Tallassee Indian of Alabama around 1804 and stood in the village as a little boy of nine when brave warriors left their homes to fight Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, not far away. The youth probably remembered how he waited for their return -- in vain.
That very battle provided another link in this chain of strange events. There, General John R.Coffee, of Tennessee, and first cousin of General John E. Coffee of Jacksonville, Georgia, was there to save the day for Andrew Jackson (along with Chief Junaluska who saved Jackson's head!). Some say that General Coffee of Jacksonville was there also but I have no documentation to show his presence at that battle. To connect this even more, General Mark Willcox married the daughter of General John Coffee of Jacksonville, Ga.
Also, in 1818, another event would occur tying these men of destiny together. Remember when we talked of running the Ellicott Line to determine the boundary of Georgia and Florida? Three men were chosen as commissioners to decide the merits of that line - General David Blackshear, General Wiley Thompson, and General John Floyd. Next week we will look at those connections with our other characters, but now, back to Billy Powell.
Like many Indians, young Billy Powell tried to adjust to the ways of the settlers and struggled to live peaceably among them. He found this, eventually, to be an impossibility.
He had tried to believe the words of one President, Thomas Jefferson, who said, "It may be regarded as certain that not a foot of land will ever be taken from the Indians without their consent. The sacredness of their rights is felt by all thinking persons in America as much as in Europe." In came westward expansion and Indian removal and out the window went the high and noble ideals of Thomas Jefferson. And Billy Powell saw it all.
So, in time, the metamorphosis of Billy Powell was complete. When the cocoon of hatred and being persecuted and pursued peeled away - layer after layer - from the body and soul of Billy Powell, he was Billy Powell no more.
Instead, there stood a handsome young warrior, now not a Tallassee Creek, but a hardened, mean and lean Seminole - an Indian brave who had risen up through the ranks, who had tolerated insult and injury, along with his tribesmen.
He had survived the gunfire of the soldiers, the pangs of starvation, the chains of imprisonment, and the other humiliations heaped upon him by the encroaching settlers and bounty hunters.
He was now an Indian to whom fellow Indians looked for leadership. He was "tustenuggee" - chief warrior and leader of battles.
He was - Osceola!
Join us next week as we continue this story. We will look at how Osceola got his name and tell more about those bound up in this strange chain of events.
Credits:
C.T. (Chris) Trowell for Exploring The Okefenokee Letters And Diaries From The Indian Wars, 1836-1842;
Alvin M. Josephy for Patriot Chiefs and The Death of Osceola;
Ann Carswell for letters of and notes on Gen. Mark Willcox;
Willcox Family History by Martha Albertson;
Pioneer Days Along the Ocmulgee by Fussell Chalker;
Telfair History (1807-1987);
info furnished by Gertrude Wilcox Williams and Diane Williams Rogers and others.
