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The Battle of Horseshoe Bend

On the morning of March 27, 1814, in what is now Tallapoosa County, Gen. Andrew Jackson and an army consisting of Tennessee militia, United States regulars, and Cherokee and Lower Creek allies attacked Chief Menawa and his Upper Creek, or Red Stick, warriors fortified in the Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River. Facing overwhelming odds, the Red Sticks fought bravely yet ultimately lost the battle. More than 800 Upper Creek warriors died at Horseshoe Bend defending their homeland.

This was the final battle of the Creek War of 1813-14. The victory at Horseshoe Bend brought Andrew Jackson national attention and helped elect him president in 1828. In treaty signed after the battle, known as the Treaty of Fort Jackson, the Creeks ceded more than 21 million acres of land to the United States...

On March 26, Jackson's army camped six miles northwest of Horseshoe Bend. Menawa, a respected war leader from the town of Okfuskee, waited at the bend with 1,000 Red Stick warriors and at least 350 women and children. Beginning in December 1813, people from six Upper Creek towns—Newyaucau, Oakfuskee, Oakchaya, Eufaula, Fishponds, and Hillabee—had gathered at Horseshoe Bend for protection. At the toe of the bend, they built a temporary village, which they called Tohopeka, consisting of about 300 log houses. They constructed a log-and-dirt barricade nearly 400 yards long across the narrow neck of the bend. In this fortified place, the Red Sticks hoped to defeat an attacking army or at least delay the attackers while the women, children, and older men escaped down river.

On the morning of March 27, Jackson divided his army. He ordered Gen. John Coffee's force of 700 mounted riflemen and 600 allied warriors to cross the Tallapoosa about two and one half miles downriver from Tohopeka and surround the village. The 2,000 remaining men, led by Jackson, marched directly for the neck of the horseshoe and the barricade. Jackson knew that it would be difficult to attack the imposing barricade. The bombardment began at 10:30 a.m. For two hours, the guns fired iron shot at the barricade protecting the Red Sticks, who waited and shouted at the army to meet them in hand-to-hand combat. Only perhaps a third of the 1,000 warriors defending the barricade possessed a musket or rifle.

The Battle of Horseshoe Bend effectively ended the Creek War and made Andrew Jackson a national hero. He was made a major general in the U.S. Army and on January 8, 1815, defeated the British forces at the Battle of New Orleans. The battles of Horseshoe Bend and New Orleans made Jackson popular enough to be elected as the seventh president of the United States in 1828. During his presidency, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, a law providing for the removal of all the southeastern Indian tribes. A few months after Horseshoe Bend, on August 9, 1814, Andrew Jackson and a gathering of Creek chiefs signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson. Thousands of American settlers poured into the vast ceded acreage, with much of the land becoming the state of Alabama in 1819. Today, the battlefield is preserved by the National Park Service as Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, near Dadeville.

Sources

• Halbert, H. S., and T. H. Ball. The Creek War of 1813 and 1814. 1895. Reprint, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1969.
• Holland, James W. Andrew Jackson and the Creek War: Victory at the Horseshoe. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1968.
• Martin, Joel W. Sacred Revolt: The Muskogees' Struggle for a New World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.
• Stiggins, George. Creek Indian History: A Historical Narrative of the Genealogy, Traditions and Downfall of the Ispocoga or Creek Indians. Birmingham, Ala.: Birmingham Public Library Press, 1989.