The Battle of Horseshoe Bend

 by Denise Weimer

Today we take a gander at the decisive battle of the Creek War or Red Stick War, which waged from 1813-14 on the Southeastern frontier as part of the War of 1812 … the setting for my latest historical romance, Bent Tree Bride. My posts have followed the movements of allied Tennessee militia and the Cherokee Regiment under General Andrew Jackson into the hostile Creek Territory of modern-day Alabama, where they fought against the Red Stick Creeks allied to the British. A series of campaigns and battles in fall of 1813 wound down to a cold and hungry winter for those soldiers whose enlistments continued. Most of the Americans lodged at Fort Strother that winter, while the Cherokees were based at Fort Armstrong. A contingent also guarded Principal Chief Path Killer at the Cherokee village of Turkey Town.

In mid-January, impatient for action, Jackson took fresh recruits against the enemy at Emuckfau, where he found the Red Sticks more difficult to vanquish than expected. On his way back north, he was attacked again while taking his cannon across Enitachopco Creek.

By March, Fort Strother swelled with new recruits, and Jackson was ready to land the final blow on the last major Red Stick village of Tohopeka in a teardrop peninsula of the Tallapoosa River. He sent his Cherokee Regiment ahead to scout and burn deserted Creek villages and his engineers to widen narrow trails for cannon and supply wagons.

On Sunday, March 27, 1814, Colonel Gideon Morgan’s five hundred Cherokees and Major William McInstosh’s one hundred National (friendly) Creeks were ordered to come up from behind the town to prevent enemy escape. Hundreds of Red Stick warriors gathered behind a five-to-eight-foot wall of logs and rock-hard mud. Jackson fired his three- and six-pound artillery at the barricade for two hours to no effect.

Across the river, the Cherokees grew impatient. Several warriors swam the Tallapoosa to commandeer canoes on the opposite bank, ferrying their comrades across under fire. They took captives and burned huts at the rear of the village, the smoke alerting Jackson of the wisdom of an infantry assault on the wall. Young Ensign Sam Houston was among the first to heed his mortally wounded commander’s summons to scale the wall, taking an arrow in his thigh. Dozens fell dead every minute as the cannons were dragged to the barricade and fired on retreating Red Sticks, and the Cherokees corralled the enemy from the rear.

Re-enactors at Horseshoe Bend

By late afternoon, the Red Sticks abandoned the fight but were killed while trying to flee across the river. Fighting continued until darkness fell. The next day, the armies returned north, though Jackson took a band of men along the Coosa to round up remaining prisoners. By April, Creek Chief Red Eagle walked into Jackson’s camp and turned himself in. Months later, Jackon negotiated peace with the Creeks and took 20 million acres of their land, sending much of the tribe west. Their bid to keep their land through alliance with the British had failed. Despite their invaluable service to the American troops, within two decades, the Cherokees’ hopes for peaceful coexistence with white settlers would also be crushed.

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for the historical imprints of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of almost a dozen published novels and a number of novellas. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses! 

Bent Tree Bride: https://www.amazon.com/Bent-Tree-Bride-Denise-Weimer-ebook/dp/B08Q8K5YD6/

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Creek War Battles of Tallushatchee and Talladega

by Denise Weimer

This year, leading up to the April 13 release of my Southeastern frontier romance, Bent Tree Bride, I’ve been delving into the history behind the novel and its setting, the Creek War, or Red Stick War. This military action during the fall of 1813 through the spring of 1814 saw the Red Stick Creeks allied to the British as part of the War of 1812, while the Cherokees allied to the Americans under General Andrew Jackson. When the Red Stick Creeks began to attack the peaceful National Creek faction, the National Creeks called for help. Then Mississippi militia tangled with the Red Sticks at Burnt Corn Creek and Fort Mims. Tennessee and Georgia militia rallied, and the Cherokee Council pledged five to seven hundred volunteers for a Cherokee Regiment.

In my last post, we followed the main body of Tennessee militia into Creek Territory, to the newly and roughly constructed, hundred-yard-square Fort Strother at the junction of the Coosa River and Canoe Creek. From the Indian Agency at Hiwassee, the Cherokee troops navigated the mountains of Northern Alabama by way of the Cherokee village of Turkey Town. There they learned the Red Sticks had gathered in a nearby village. The Cherokees set out on their own to confront them, finding the victims of General Coffee’s Tennessee militia at Tallushatchee … where my conflicted Cherokee lieutenant first tests himself in action. General Jackson had captured two Creeks who revealed the Red Sticks were gathering at Tallushatchee, twenty-five miles south of Turkey Town.

General Coffee

On the morning of November 3, 1813, Jackson dispatched Brigadier General Coffee and 900 men to encircle the hostiles. Lieutenant James Patterson’s troops drew the Creeks out. They charged the right column, then retreated. At first, it seemed casualties would be few, but about four dozen Red Sticks retreated to a single log building. When General Coffee’s dragoons approached the door, a weak old Creek woman stretched a bow with her feet and killed a lieutenant. Davy Crockett, present with the Tennessee militia, later reported that this sent the troops into a rage. They killed the woman and set the house on fire, burning it with forty-six warriors inside. The Red Sticks fought desperately but were defeated. Cabins were razed and those inside burned alive. Nineteen Creek women and children were brought from hiding in the woods and taken as slaves.

Most of the Cherokee Regiment arrived too late to witness or take part in what was later called a massacre. The orders of Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs had specified women and children were not to be killed in combat. Coffee blamed the outcome on the civilians hiding in their homes. At this battle, General Jackson claimed an infant, Lyncoya, whose mother had been killed. The child was ten months old, the same age as Jackson’s adopted son, Andrew Jr. When Creek women prisoners refused to care for him, Jackson sent him to his wife in Nashville.

While Jackson’s forces returned from Tallushatchee, Red Stick warriors besieged National Creeks at Fort Leslie/Lashley near present-day Talladega, Alabama. A National Creek son of a chief escaped wrapped in a hog skin to inform Jackson. Jackson sent orders for Colonel Gideon Morgan’s Cherokee Regiment to join his own troops for the attack, but General John Cocke tossed the order and commandeered the Cherokees for another use, destroying the Creek towns of the Hillabee region. These towns had asked for peace, but Cocke rode against them before General Jackson’s acceptance could reach them. Whether the general knew Jackson had accepted their surrender or not remained in question, but his actions made the Cherokee Regiment unwitting aggressors.

On November 9, Jackson encircled Fort Leslie/Lashley with 1200 infantry and 800 cavalry. The Creeks attacked, and the militia retreated, allowing the warriors to escape. Without the Cherokees to assist, more than seven hundred Red Stick Creeks escaped to regroup. The scene was set for a harsh, starving winter with the army holed up at Fort Strother, the conflict only to be resolved by the massive spring battle of Horseshoe Bend.

Battle of Talladega

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for the historical imprints of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of a dozen published novels and a number of novellas. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses!

Bent Tree Bride is now available! 

https://www.amazon.com/Bent-Tree-Bride-Denise-Weimer-ebook/dp/B08Q8K5YD6/

Connect with Denise here:

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