(Kindly contributed by William C. Bell)

CHAPTER XL.
Remarkable Canoe Fight-- Battle of Holy Ground-- March to Cahaba Old Towns.

(NOTE: The dialog below is only an portion of what was on the website that I had found it on. You can go to this website to find the whole work: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cmamcrk4/pkt40.html)

February 1, 1814

Having planned an expedition against the enemy, Colonel Russell despatched Captain Denkins up the Alabama from Fort Claiborne in command of a barge, laden with provisions, and defended by a piece of artillery, with instructions to enter the Cahawba river, and to ascend it to the "Old Towns," where his army would shortly join him. Afterwards, marching the larger portion of his regiment to the cross-roads, in Clarke county, four miles north of the present Sugsville, he was there joined by a company commanded by Captain Evan Austill and Lieutenant G. W. Creagh, and Captain Foster's horse company, both under the command of Major Samuel Dale. Leaving this place, with six days rations, Colonel Russell reached the Cahawba Old Towns, where he was mortified to find that Captain Denkins had not arrived -- nor had he encountered, on the way, a solitary Indian. Despatching Lieutenant Wilcox in a canoe, with five men, with directions to find Denkins and hasten him on, that officer proceeded down the Cahawba, upset his boat the first night, wet his ammunition, and lost two of his guns. Recovering the canoe, however, and proceeding down the river, lying by in the cane in the day time, he was, in the evening of the second day, fired upon by a party of Indians. The two Wilsons, who belonged to this expedition, made their escape, and reached the lower settlements many days after, in a starving condition. One of them, Mathew, was found by Hais Rodgers, on the ridge road of Clarke. Lieutenant Wilcox and the other three were made prisoners by the Indians, who proceeded with them down the Cahawba, into the Alabama. In the meantime, Denkins, unfortunately passing the mouth of the Cahawba by mistake, had ascended some distance up the Alabama, and was now returning to Fort Claiborne, knowing that the army could not wait for him, but would return to that place likewise. The Indians, going down the river also, descried the barge, and fearing to lose their prisoners, tomahawked and scalped Wilcox and his three companions, leaving them in their canoe. When the canoe and the barge came together Wilcox was still alive, but too far gone to give any account of the particulars of his capture, or of Russell's expedition. The body of this gallant young officer, being found upon the Alabama, where it meanders through the region between Canton and Prairie Bluff, the legislature appropriately preserved his memory, by giving the county his name.