WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.

June 21st, 1858.

COL. A.J. Pickett:

Dear Sir: -- I addressed to you, in April last, a letter through the Montgomery Mail. Some few days after I forwarded that, I wrote a second one, which I intended for you, but not knowing that my first was published, I declined sending the second. But a few days back I received the number of the Mail in which my letter was published. Whether you found that either instructive or interesting, I cannot say; but inasmuch as that has been published I shall risk another, and if our friend Hooper finds it too long and uninteresting, he can do with it as he has to do with other trash -- throw it aside, or commit it to the flames.

In your letter to me of February last, you mentioned something of the inquiry I made in a private letter to my friend Hartrick, about a manuscript. Why that inquiry was made, I had learned that you had had, at one time, the manuscripts of George Stiggins, and possibly I might learn something of the manuscript I loaned him. I had no idea that anything I had written would be used by you, or any one else, in the history of a country; but the manuscript of Christian Limbo, taken from Col. Hawkins' writings, I would have been glad to have gotten hold of, as it contained much I think (if now published) that would be new to you and others, and entertaining to all who take an interest in Indian history. Besides, it contained the copies of two letters written as far back as 1735, by Sir James or Gen. Oglethorpe. They were written at different times, but both written at Frederica, on St. Simond's Island. The letters were directed to James McQueen, requesting him to use his influence with the Indians and prevent them, if possible, from taking sides with the Spaniards who were then threatening to attack the infant colony of Georgia. The letters were written in a style very different from letters written at the present day; and the bearer of those letters was a Scotchman named Malcolm McPherson. He was the natural father of Sehoya, or Schoy McPherson, and she was the mother of Davy Tate and Billy Weatherford was a sister to Alexander McGillivray. I will now tell you how you have been led into that error; I see you speak of the Wind tribe of Indians, and I also see that you give Barrent Deboys' versions of it; he never could tell the difference between clan as family and a tribe. I have before this, in one of my letters to Mr. Hooper, tried to explain this family arrangement. The Creek Indians were laid off in families or clans, as were the Scots with their Campbells, McPhersons, McGregers, and so on, with this difference: the Scotch clans had just as many privileges as their numbers and the strength of their arms would allow them. The privileges of the Indian clans were prescribed by their laws, but the Wind family or clan were always allowed more than the Bears, Panthers, Foxes and others; and any of these families in speaking of the family to which he or she belonged, claimed kin with the whole family as brother, sister, uncle, aunt, and at the same time be noways related by blood. And as to what family Tate and McGillivray's wives belonged, I do not pretend to say, though I am certain that's the way the relationship has come about. For I never heard of the mother of McGillivray being crossed upon the French until I saw it in your history. But always understood her to be a full Indian, and the mother of Tate and Weatherford to b.e a half-breed, and the most interesting woman in the nation of her time.

I see in your history, for the first time I ever heard of such a thing, that Alexander McGillivray was an educated man. That's new to me as it would have been to himself, could he have been shown it in his day. The letters purporting to have been written by him which appear in the History of Alabama, are well written, and show conclusively that they emanated from no ordinary man. But could the author of those letters and McGillivray to whom they are ascribed, look back, they could say that the world is yet as credulous as in their time. If there is any one living that can or could identify the hand writing of a Scotchman by the name of Alex F. Leslie, he could easily tell who wrote those letters. This man Leslie did McGillivray's writing and was worthy of (so far as intellect is concerned) the notice of his distinguished relative of our own country, General Alexander Hamilton.

Leslie was by birth a Scotchman. He came to the Island of Barbadoes when a young man; from thence to St. Augustine, Fla. He was engaged in business with Forbes, Panthon and others; spent much of his time among the Creek Indians; and was the father of the half-breed Alexander Leslie that the Fort of Talladega was called after. That was Fort Leslie and not Fort Lashly, as they have given it to you. This much, I knew the half-breed as well as any other in the Nation. The history of his father I have had from Hamby and Irish Doyle, (not Nimrod Doyle,) both well educated men, and in the service of Panthon, Forbes and Leslie for years; besides, I heard Gov. McIntosh, of Florida, many years ago, speaking of the many shrewd men that had at an early day come to Florida, say that this man Leslie was the most talented man of the whole. I knew Gov. Clark, of Ga., Gen. Adams, Col. Sam. Alexander and (not James Alexander) all Indian fighters and frontiermen -- knew McGillivray well and all spoke of him and admitted him to be a man of great natural sense, but never learned from any of them that he was an educated man.

I knew Gen. Newnan well -- served with him long in the army. He was an officer at Fort Wilkinson when the meeting you speak of took place between General Pickens and others with McGillivray, at the Rock Landing. Gen. Newnan knew both the men, and said Billy McIntosh was the greatest man of the two that is, McIntosh and McGillivray. Now, for a moment, if your history of that meeting be correct, and no doubt it is, it will prove that McGillivray was not the man of learning that you represent him to be. His quitting the Council, going off to Ocmulgee with his people, writing back that he left to get a good feeding ground for his horses -- I know every foot of ground and every branch he crossed, and through what is now Baldwin and Jones counties, was then one of the best range countries that ever existed in Georgia or Alabama. That portion of your history gives the true character of McGillivray, as it does the true character of the Indian when a talk don't suit them; break up and go off. But it was a subterfuge that so able and learned a man, so superior to those commissioners on the part of United States diplomacy, would not likely have resorted to. To detract or hide, willfully, from the world what the dead merited while living, would be unpardonable, but every thing that is said or written of those departed ones, (or even living ones,) to make them greater than they really were, that much the biographer does at his own expense. I never knew McGillivray, but I think I know his true character as well as any now living, and better than many that knew him when living, as I have mingled much with both whites and Indians that knew him well. As I once wrote to a gentleman before I ever saw your history, had Alexander McGillivray been living in the War of 1813 and '14, and could have united his people, the history of that war would have been a very different one to what it is. I know it was the opinion of Gen. Washington that McGillivray acted with duplicity towards our government, and you in your history give the reader to think that he was a treacherous man. But I differ with your history as I do with the best man that has left his name on record, as to McGillivray's true character. I know that McGillivray never liked our people or our government, but that he carried out every promise that he ever made, ,red in good faith too, I have no doubt. I have learned this from those that knew him -- knew his feelings, and the awkward situation he was placed in, and what he had contended with. He had to deal more or less with the United States, England, and Spain, all three jealous of McGillivray, and all jealous of each other; it would have taken a man North of Mason and Dixon's line to wear a face to have suited all those that McGillivray had to deal with and make any thing of a fair show.

Another thing that satisfies me McGillivray was not the learned man, or man of letters, that you make him to be; you can find no letters from Gen. Washington to him, or from him to Gen. Washington; perhaps a letter or two to Gen. Knox, written by Leslie, with McGillivray's name attached to them, may be found, but no others. The idea of McGillivray, (with the learning you give him,) suffering himself dubbed General, in a government where the organic law of the land prohibited his being a citizen, is as absurd as any thing can be. And then trapsing the streets of cities with an American uniform on, is suited to the Indian character, but not that of a profound scholar. Besides, I am very much inclined to doubt if there is a record in existence to show or prove that he ever mastered the Latin and Greek languages, in any school either in South Carolina or Georgia, and am as much inclined to doubt their being a Masonic Lodge or Chapter that can show that he was ever a member of one or both. I was raised in Georgia, but have never read its history, nor have I ever heard before I saw it in your history, of those large confiscated estates of Lauchlan McGillivray. Though I have often heard that Malcom McPherson and George GaIpin lost much by the war and the British, but not by the Americans.

I knew Davy Tate well and spent near seven weeks with him at one time, many years ago; he was decidedly the most sensible and well informed man I have ever seen of the Indian blood, (that is the Creek;) he was not educated; a man of much truth, and like his half-brother, a man of great firmness. He has talked to me much; I never heard him say that McGillivray was a man of letters. But he has often said to me that McGillivray lived pretty much upon the property of his (Tate's) father, and that the man Daniel McDonald, that I have before spoken of who came to the country with Lauchlan McGillivray and John Tare, that after the disappearance of Lauchlan McGillivray from the country, he (Daniel McDonald) assumed the name of Daniel McGillivray, and fell heir to most of McGillivray's property that he left in the nation. This I have learned from others, as well as Davy Tate.

This man Daniel McDonald, or Daniel McGillivray, was the father of the chief known as Bit Nose Billy McGillivray. The Gen. Leclerk Milfort you frequently refer to as authority, I never heard of, though I have often heard of a little Frenchman by the name of Milfort Dusong, who had lived in the nation before I knew it; this man Milfort had an Indian wife and left one son, Alexander or Sandy Dusong. I knew him; he emigrated with the Creeks to Arkansas in '36 and '37. It is not unfrequently the case with Indians, as it is with the whites, to claim relationship with distinguished persons, particularly Virginians. I have not seen a little dark-skinned, swarthy man from Virginia, for the last thirty years, no matter what race he sprang from, but claimed kin with John Randolph, and the Powetan family.

I knew Alexander McGillivray's children well; his daughter Peggy was the wife of Charles Cornels, and died before Cornels hung himself. His daughter Lizzy lived by me for years; I purchased hers and her son's land. They were located on section 16, in township 16 and range 24; it lies in Macon county, near Tuskegee; I sold it to James Dent. I lived many years by Mrs. McGirth; she was McGillivray's last wife; spoke good English, -- from none of these did I ever learn that he was a scholar.

I could say much more upon this subject, but this is already too long. I will close this by saying to you, that as you and I both have had to rely upon the statements of others for what we write, and you much more than myself, we will remain as we always have been, friends, and let those that read what we write judge which is most likely to be right. When I have time I will write and point out many errors that you have been led into that I know of my own knowledge, and come within the knowledge of others that still live. It is our nature when we say or write a thing, to wish the world to believe us right, (and many wish it if they know they are wrong.) But there is nothing more noble and generous in a man, than when he finds he is in error to own and abandon it. And as there has been some little interest taken or felt in what I have written, if I can, I will spend a month or two in Montgomery next winter. I could tell you many things that have been forgotten, and could point out many places that would interest you and others that are living there.

T.S.W.