de of the arrest of any surveyor, to take
all necessary and legal measures to effect their liberation, and to
bring to justice all the parties concerned in such arrests, as violators
of the peace and personal security of the State. He also ordered
the major generals of the militia to hold the various regiments and
battalions in readiness to repel any hostile invasion of the State. But
no acts of violence were committed. The surveyors were not arrested, the
surveys were made, and the lands ceded by the treaty of Indian Spring
were divided by lottery in 1827.

The Upper Creeks, who had always been unfriendly to the Georgians,
were so angry at the signing of the treaty of Indian Spring, that they
determined to assassinate General William Mcintosh. They had never
forgiven him for leading his party of Lower Creeks against them in the
campaign that was made necessary by the terrible massacre of Fort Mims,
and they now determined to rid themselves of him at once and forever.

We have seen that General Mcintosh, and his party of Lower Creeks,
suspecting that an attack would be made on them by the powerful tribes
on the Tallapoosa, went to Milledgeville to beg the governor to protect
them. Protection was promised, but never given. Meanwhile the Upper
Creeks held a secret council, and selected a hundred and seventy of the
boldest warriors in the nation to murder Mcintosh. They marched in the
most cautious way. They reached the neighborhood of Mcintosh's home,
and concealed themselves, to wait for night to fall. About sundown, or
a little before, the Indians saw from their hiding place two persons
riding along a trail. One was Mcintosh, and the other a man named
Hawkins, who had married one of Mcintosh's daughters. It would have been
an easy matter for the savages to have killed Mcintosh at this time; but
they had made up their minds to kill him upon his own premises, so that
his blood might stain the land that had been granted him by the State.
While still in sight of the men who had been sent to slay him, Mcintosh
bade Hawkins good evening, wheeled his horse, and rode back on the trail
toward his home. Although he was now alone, the Indians would not kill
him. They had fixed up a different plan, and they carried it out.

Before dark the Indians gathered together a supply of "fat lightwood,"
as the resinous pine was called. This they split into convenient length,
and made up into three bundles to be carried on the backs of their