Brother, if you read this after I am gone, find Caroline Pineraft Bearkiller or her family and give them whatever a Cherokee warrior gives a woman he would like to court, in my name. I hope and pray that even if I don't walk out to Georgia, she will.
By my hope of heaven and my fear of hell,
Thomas
•
Joshua Parker to Thomas Parker, Nantes, France,
January 12, 1814
Brother,
The English papers assure the world that the Indians are sweeping all before them in Georgia, as Wellington is in Spain and the allies in Germany. I permit myself to hope that if the part about the Indians is true, they have not swept you up.
We have reason to believe that the papers are telling the truth, about the fall of New Orleans. Whether they are also truthful in saying that the French inhabitants of the city would not fight to remain under American rule, is a matter for speculation. Can you add to our knowledge of these circumstances?
Any possession of that city gives the British a military advantage, through holding the mouth of the Mississippi and barring the commerce of the settlers in the great river's valley. They might also be able to carve out their dreamed-of "Indian homeland." Does anyone believe this reflects anything but a desire to use them as catspaws against the United States?
Indeed, by the terms of the original Treaty of San Iledefonso, by which the French gained Louisiana from Spain, the French had no right to sell the territory to President Jefferson and he had no right to buy it! When we were at peace and the Spanish at war with the British, this clearly mattered little. But now that Spain and Britain are allies, with the British using Florida, could the British Crown not find a pretext for «protecting» their allies' territory from the dreadful Yankees and so remain in occupation of New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana in perpetuity?
I fear that giving the British cause to fear our power at sea may not have served our national purpose as well as we thought it would.
I must set down my pen, as we have just learned that Commodore Samuel Barron has reached Nantes and wishes to embark for the United States, apparently with hope of reinstatement in the Navy and a command at sea! This also is an unexpected consequence of the course of the war at sea.
P.S.-We are hastily preparing for sea. It appears that the Alliance against Napoleon may be disintegrating. There is talk of a victory over Wellington in the south of France, and a separate peace with Austria. The French semaphore system sends messages with the speed of the wind, but of course it can send lies as easily and swiftly as truth.
If the French can then make peace with the British, they will face only Spain, Prussia, and Russia. Spain is weak, Prussia implacable but needing British subsidies, and the czar a weathercock whose armies in any case would be campaigning far from home. Since any peace with the British would surely require an end to French cooperation with the Americans, we wish to be at sea before the French can decide to throw us to the Lion as a gesture of goodwill.
This letter goes on the Baltimore privateer Barrett, although I hope to have time to make a fair copy.
In regrettable haste,
Joshua
•
Thomas Parker to Joshua Parker, from the middle of Georgia, late March, 1814
This missive ought to find its way to Baltimore, and I hope onward to you. If the rumors about peace in Europe are true, the British will have ships and to spare for us, not having to blockade the French coast anymore.
Since the last time I wrote, we have marched a long ways toward Savannah, skirmishing with hostiles most of the way. We'd have been in a sorry muck several more times without Cherokee help.
It seems as if the Muskogee Nation Indians used a deal of their powder and guns from the British to settle old scores with the Cherokee. This puts the Cherokee firmly on our side, at least as long as we're fighting the British.
General Jackson's command is catching up with us. When it does, we will have about two thousand men in three columns, most of them from Tennessee and Kentucky. Even where the Georgians had enough settlers to make up a militia, the ones who've turned out were half armed, more than half naked, and hungry. If it wasn't for the Cherokee trying their best to feed us as well as their own people, we'd never have been able to advance.
We are now down in the lowlands, where it can be warm even at this time of year. The soil is all red clay, which sticks to you whether its mud or dust. After a day's march, you can't tell who started off white and who red, because everybody has turned clay-colored.
Nothing seems to be happening on the Canadian border. I suppose the strengths on the lake and on land are too evenly matched. I begin to doubt that the War Hawks were as smart as they thought they were. A war they thought would win us Canada may lose us even territory we had under the Peace of Paris thirty years ago!
A messenger in-General Jackson will be joining us in two days, and is sending word ahead to Savannah. If I can pour enough whiskey into the messenger, he might take this letter to the coast and find a ship to take it to Baltimore. The British are watching Savannah, but I've heard there are lots of creeks where nobody who doesn't know the water can sail even a rowboat.
Caroline Pineraft Bearkiller wishes me to greet you in her name. I don't think this means anything but good manners, which she has more than many white women I've known. She also says that Bearkiller is from an ancestor's hunting, but Pineraft is when she rode a log down a flooded stream to rescue a child who'd fallen in.
Your dusty brother,
Thomas
•
Joshua Parker to Thomas Parker, aboard United States, Norfolk, May 15, 1814
I am sorry to say that our respected mother appears to have opened both of your last letters to me that reached her and is somewhat distempered about Caroline Bearkiller. She certainly wrote me in strong terms on the subject. If she has not written in such terms to you, I will spare you knowledge of them for now.
It was easier for us to return than it was to go out, because of the odd sort of peace that has come to Europe. The Austrians and the Russians have recognized Napoleon's son as emperor, but since he is a baby, there is a Council of Regency that includes his mother, the Dowager Empress Marie Louise, who of course is an Austrian princess. There is also a Superior Council of War, with old Boney himself in the rank of Marshal as its Chairman and some marshal named Davout as the Minister of War.
The French would not have welcomed the Bourbons back unless that was the only way of winning peace. Monarchist sympathizers in Nantes (whom we suspect in the disappearance of some of our sailors) did not like the agreement. But in time they admitted that if it kept the Prussians and Russians out of France, they could live with the Little Eagle or even under him without too much pain.
The British were said to be very reluctant parties to the armistice, and may yet balk at a peace treaty on these terms. There are also rumors that the Austrians hope to push the British toward agreement, by letting the French hold on to Italian territories that they would otherwise be returning to the Habsburgs. The British do not want the French all over the Mediterranean.