Chickamauga Timeline



THE U.S. / CHEROKEE ALLIED MASSACRE OF THE CREEK/CHEROKEE CHICKAMAUGANS AT HORSESHOE BEND

Thurman Wilkins account
George C. Mackenzie's account

MOST ALL HISTORIES HAVE BEEN REWRITTEN TO EXCLUDE THE FACT THAT CHEROKEES LED BY DEER CLAN MEMBER MAJOR RIDGE ALLIED WITH THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT AGAINST THEIR OWN PEOPLE... AND COMMITTED ATROCITIES AGAINST THOSE CHICKAMAUGAN CHEROKEE AND CREEKS AT HORSESHIE BEND!

THE UPPER CREEK REDSTICKS AND THE CHICKAMAUGAN CHEROKEE RESISTANCE FIGHTERS WERE ALLIES AGAINST THE US GOVERNMENT. REMEMBER THE BATTLE OF NICKAJACK WAS TO BREAK UP THESE ALLIANCES AS THEY THREATENED THE LAND THIEVING PLANS OF THE US GOVERNMENT YONEGAS. THEY PARTICIPATED TOGETHER AT THE BATTLE OF HORSESHOE BEND AGAINST THE TRAITOROUS RIDGE AND THE NEARLY FULL BLOOD WHITE ROSS AND THE VILLAINOUS JACKSON.

REMEMBER THE REDSTICKS,  REMEMBER THE THUNDERBOLT WARRIORS WHO FELL AT HORSESHOE BEND.

Thurman Wilkin's account

It is known that Major Ridge made the personal acquaintance of Jackson during these early

years. Perhaps it occurred during the days when Jackson's forces were building up at Fort

Strother - the days when Jackson, lean of body and thin of face, with red, rough skin, unruly hair,

and piercing blue eyes, circulated ceaselessly among his men, his left arm now in his coat sleeve

but still nearly useless from the wound he had received in a duel before the campaign. His

health was on the mend now, though he still suffered from occasional paroxysms of that

intestinal disorder whose distress would cause him to prop his lank body against a sapling trunk,

freshly chopped, his arms dangling over the horizontal pole. No suffering seemed to daunt his

implacable will; he was a man so tough-grained, so unyielding, that he had earned the nickname

of "Old Hickory." He had won the complete confidence of the Cherokees.

Jackson's forces continued to build, and when early in March they reached their maximum

strength, they numbered five thousand men, mostly militia, hastily raised, with little training or

even none, and poorly equipped. But they also included the regulars of the Thirty-Ninth U.S.

Infantry, and these, Jackson believed, "will give strength to my arm and quell mutiny." The

buildup was complete by March 13, and sufficient supplies had arrived from Tennessee so

that Jackson felt no longer haunted by the spectre of famine; and on the next morning to the roll

of a single drum (for only one drummer could be found in the entire army) the general ordered

his forces to march. As almost all of the Cherokees were mounted, they were attached to General

Coffee's troop of cavalry and moved forward with the white horsemen.

The army forded the river, and pushing through thick forest, marsh, and canebrake, arrived on

March 21 at the mouth of Cedar Creek, where the barricades of Fort Williams were hastily

thrown up. Major Ridge and many Cherokees accompanied the detachment Jackson sent to

scour the surrounding country. On the twenty- second they burned two deserted towns some

twelve and fifteen miles down the river; they discovered tracks of several small parties

of Creeks, but the enemy proved elusive, and the detachment returned to the fort on the

twenty-third without an encounter.

Supplies had arrived meanwhile in flatboats down the Coosa, and with the rear of his army

secured, Jackson ordered his men forward the following morning with provisions for eight days,

leaving a detachment to guard the fort. The advancing columns now consisted of two thousand

infantry and four hundred cavalry, plus five hundred Cherokees and a hundred friendly Creeks,

the latter including a band of Cowetas under William McIntosh. They cut a passage across the

ridge that separated the Coosa Valley from the Tallapoosa; they splashed through marshes more

mucky than ever, a hard advance of nearly fifty miles, till on the evening of the twenty-sixth they

came to a campsite within six miles of their destination: that is, a sharp bend in the Tallapoosa

that formed a peninsula of about one hundred acres known as Tohopeka (or the Horseshoe),

where the population of six Creek towns were then enforted for a desperate last stand.

The Americans advanced with their Indian auxiliaries early next morning, and by ten o'clock

they were in battle position. The Red Sticks had thrown a breastwork of logs across the neck of

'Tohopeka to protect the encampment behind. It was arranged so as to subject any frontal assault

to cross fire; hence Jackson proposed to bombard it first with his artillery, two small cannons

supplied with grapeshot. Meanwhile he sent the mounted men under Coffee, including all of

the Indians, both the Cherokees and the friendly Creeks, to ford the river two miles below and to

station themselves along the eastern side of the bend to cut off any Creek retreat. Thus, the

enemy was surrounded in the enfortment, the houses visible from where the Ridge and the

Cherokees lurked. They could also see a line of canoes moored along the peninsula's shore.

Coffee sent up signals as soon as his men had taken their places, and Jackson ordered the

cannonade, the guns emplaced on a slight rise some eighty yards from the breastwork. I'he

cannons poured grapeshot into the center of the fortification, while the rifles and muskets laid

down a blistering fire whenever the Creeks showed themselves behind the logs. The volleys

persisted for two hours, with little success. Meanwhile, beyond the river, the Cherokees had

grown impatient for action. Covered with a brisk fire, three privates, including Charles Reese,

the brother-in-law of The Ridge's brother Watie,* plunged into the river and swam to the Creek

canoes where one of them, a warrior named The Whale, was wounded, so they brought back

only two canoes, but these were filled to capacity for the return trip, each warrior securing a new

canoe.

In time the double 0 was dropped From the spelling of Oowatie's name. In pronunciation the

sound of w began to swallow up the sound of double O.

"Major Ridge was the first to embark," wrote McKenney; "and in these ... boats the Cherokees

crossed, a few at a time, until the whole body [as well as Captain William Russell's spies] had

penetrated to the enemy's camp." Soon their bullets drove the Red Sticks from out of the huts

toward the breastwork that Jackson bombarded, and they set fire to several of the buildings.

They themselves advanced in the direction of the barricade, firing on the Creeks who lay behind

it. Spurred by the prophets, who danced and howled their incantations, their faces blackened and

their heads and shoulders decked with feathers, the Red Sticks battled fiercely; and seeing

that the Cherokees and Russell's spies were not strong enough to displace them, Jackson

determined to take the breastwork by storm. His men hurled themselves against it. Creek bullets

were flattened against the bayonets the soldiers thrust through the portholes. The Cherokees

redoubled their attack, diverting the attention of the Creek defenders, giving the white soldiers a

chance to swarm across the barricade, Sam Houston among them, cheering on the men behind

him.

The fight continued for five hours, no Red Stick begging for his life; and when more than half of

the Creeks lay dead among the smoldering ruins of their huts, the rest broke and plunged into

the river. It was then they found the opposite shore lined with Coffee's mounted men, who

poured a deadly fire down on the swimmers in the river, closing all chance of escape.

According to McKenney's account:

[The] Ridge was a distinguished actor in this bloody drama, and we are told that he was the first

to leap into the river in pursuit of the fugitives. Six Creek warriors, some of whom had been

previously wounded, fell by his hand. As he attempted to plunge his sword into one of these, the

Creek closed with him, and a severe contest ensued. Two of the most athletic of their race were

struggling in the water for life or death, each endeavoring to drown the other. [The] Ridge,

forgetting his own knife, seized one which his antagonist wore and stabbed him; but the wound

was not fatal, and the Creek still fought with an equal chance of success, when he was stabbed

with a spear by one of [The] Ridge's friends, and thus fell a hero who deserved a nobler fate.

Some of the Red Sticks hid themselves behind thick piles of brush and timber, Not wishing to

annihilate the Creeks completely, Jackson sent an interpreter in their direction with a message of

clemency provided they would surrender. The Red Sticks shouted back in defiance and fired

their muskets, shooting the messenger down; whereupon the whites set fire to the timber and, as

the Red Sticks fled from the blazing inferno, gunned them down. The firing did not cease till late

at night. "The carnage was dreadful," Jackson wrote.

The next morning he detailed a squad to count the dead. To make no mistake in the number,

they snipped off the nose of each dead Indian as soon as they had counted the body. This

practical operation constituted by no means the most barbaric atrocity inflicted upon the bodies,

and the greatest responsibility was held by white men rather than by the Indians, who merely

scalped the dead. The whites did a brisk business in flaying corpses to make belts, and some

committed outrages to secure hide for bridle reins, which, according to an eyewitness, was

accomplished in the following manner: "They began at the lower part of the leg, near the heel,

and with a knife made two parallel incisions through the skin, about three inches or more apart,

running these incisions up the leg and along the side of the back to the shoulder blade and thence

across to the other shoulder, and from there down the other side of the back and down the other

leg to the heel. The strip between the incisions was then skinned out, and the soldier had a long

strap of human skin, which he used as a bridle rein. So in the Creek War all the barbarity was

not committed on the Indian side." Meanwhile the work of the squad detailed to count bodies

resulted in Jackson's report that, out of 1000 Red Stick warriors, 557 lay dead in the ruins of

Tohopeka. Coffee estimated that his men had killed 350 more in the water, leaving only 100

who could have escaped, many of them direly wounded. It was learned later that Menawa, the

Red Stick leader at the Horseshoe, had dressed himself in a woman's clothing as soon as he

was wounded and had lain in a pile of dead squaws till night came on, when he fled to

safety.

In contrast with the Creek toll, the Americans had lost only thirty- two in death, with

ninety-nine wounded. Of the Cherokees eighteen were dead and thirty-six were wounded,

while the friendly Creeks counted but five dead and eleven wounded. Thus stood the

casualty figures for one of the most decisive Indian battles on the continent. The power

of the Creeks was broken at the Horseshoe. From that day on Old Hickory's fame began to

grow, the ground swell of popularity that would sweep him eventually into the White House.

And in his first great military success, as he himself acknowledged, the Cherokees played a

decisive role, one that Jackson would prefer later to forget. The record prompted Meigs to write:

"The Cherokee warriors have fought and bled freely and according to their numbers have lost

more men than any [other] part of the Army." And later when Jackson, in the White House, was

inclined to forget his debt to the Cherokees, John Ridge publicly reminded him: "The General, as

a soldier, has admitted the valour of my honoured father in that campaign."

Meanwhile the Americans returned to Fort William. There Jackson discharged the Cherokees in

triumph, and they made their way home, a wet ordeal, the rains falling continuously, the rivers

and creeks raging, the trails deep with mud. At the same time the commander marched south to

the junction of the Coosa and the Tallapoosa-sacred ground, according to the prophets, where no

enemy could walk and live. Fort Toulouse he rechristened as Fort Jackson. Opposition melted

before him, and William Weatherford, supreme military leader of the Red Sticks, came to his

headquarters to lay down his arms.

General Pinckney reached Fort Jackson April 20 with soldiers from North and South Carolina. In

view of the general submission of the Creeks, he pronounced the war at an end and, except for

troops needed for garrison duty, he ordered the volunteers from Tennessee to return home. They

marched north without delay, crossed the Tennessee River; and at Fayetteville Jackson bade

them goodbye in a stirring address.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AND HOW DID THE YONEGAS REPAY THE CHEROKEES?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Cherokees, including The Ridge, had since reached home, only to find that their country had

been despoiled and ravaged during the passage through it of white volunteers from east

Tennessee. The militia, disorderly and irresponsible, had stolen horses, killed hogs and cattle,

destroyed corncribs and fences, and taken corn and maple sugar, even clothing from the Indian

residents. Indeed, the Cherokees found their homes and families had suffered more at the hands

of their white allies than from their enemies, the Creeks.

SOURCE: Cherokee Tragedy, Thurman Wilkins, The Mac Millan Company, 1970

Courtesy of the Alabama Archeologist Society. Drawing by James McKinley)

Scholars know that the barricade was five to eight feet high and ran in a zigzag fashion across the peninsula, and that the defenders arranged logs around the barricade to make the defenses even harder to approach. Studies suggest that the barricade was probably designed by Red Eagle, who was familiar with defensive works at Mobile and Pensacola.

Jackson, at this time a Major General in the Tennessee Militia, led forces who arrived at Horseshoe Bend at 10:30 a.m. The U.S. Army’s 39th Regiment and the East Tennessee Militia formed a line facing the barricade. To their rear, the West (Middle Tennessee) Militia formed a second parallel line. Well forward and to the right of both lines, on a rise about 250 yards from the breastwork, Jackson placed two artillery pieces aimed at the center of the barricade. Other troops surrounded the toe of the peninsula on the opposite side of the river to prevent a Creek retreat and to keep reinforcements from reaching the Red Sticks. The barricade impressed Jackson, who described it in a letter he wrote the next day:

It is impossible to conceive a situation more eligible for defence than the one they had chosen and the skill which they manifested in their breastwork was really astonishing. It extended across the point in such a direction as that a force approaching would be exposed to a double fire, while they lay entirely safe behind it. It would have been impossible to have raked it with cannon to any advantage even if we had had possession of one extremity.¹

For the first two hours of the battle, cannon shot plunged into the barrier, injuring the men behind it. The fortification remained strong enough, however, to prevent the attackers from marching through it.

Meanwhile, some of Jackson’s American Indian allies who were guarding the south side of the Tallapoosa decided to swim 120 yards across the river. There they stole Red Stick canoes, which they used to transport a mixed force of Cherokee, Creek, and Tennessee Militia back to the peninsula. These men attacked the Red Sticks from the rear, burning the village of Tohopeka and taking the women and children prisoner.

The main army, however, was still blocked by the breastwork. Jackson saw the smoke rising from Tohopeka Village and heard continuing small arms fire from the peninsula. He decided to assault the barricade directly while the Creek were diverted to their rear. Though a failed charge could destroy his army, Jackson concluded that the futility of the artillery bombardment left him no alternative.

At 12:30 p.m. a roll of the drums signaled the beginning of the attack. The fighting was ferocious, with great bravery displayed by both sides. Jackson reported that the action was maintained "muzzle to muzzle through the port holes, in which many of the enemy’s balls were welded to the bayonets of our musquets...." Once the breastwork was surmounted, hand-to-hand fighting ensued. Slowly, the superior numbers of Jackson’s infantry overwhelmed the Red Stick warriors, who also found themselves harassed from behind by the Indians and other militia units who had crossed the river.

What followed is best described as a slaughter. European American soldiers and their Creek allies killed as many Red Sticks as possible. For example, they set fire to a heap of timber the peninsula’s defenders had hidden behind; when the Red Sticks emerged, they were immediately shot down. The bloodshed continued until dark; the next morning another 16 Creek, found hidden under the banks, were killed. In the end, 557 warriors died on the battlefield and an estimated 250 to 300 more drowned or were shot trying to cross the river. Only 49 Tennessee militia men died that day, and another 154 were wounded, many mortally. Fewer than a dozen "friendly" Creek also died.

Among the militia was 21-year-old ensign Sam Houston, later governor of Tennessee and president of the Republic of Texas. Years later he described the results of the battle:

The sun was going down, and it set on the ruin of the Creek nation. Where, but a few hours before a thousand brave...[warriors] had scowled on death and their assailants, there was nothing to be seen but volumes of dense smoke, rising heavily over the corpses of painted warriors, and the burning ruins of their fortifications.²

The Battle of Horseshoe Bend effectively ended the Creek War. In August Jackson went against orders from Washington and single­handedly negotiated the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which forced the Creek to cede almost 20 million acres—nearly half their territory—to the U.S. Although most of the land the U.S. government took had been held by Red Sticks, the territory also included many villages and a great deal of hunting land held by friendly Creek. (In the 1960s the Creek won a judicial decision that provided compensation to the heirs of those whose land was taken unfairly.)

Surprisingly, Red Eagle, who was not at Horseshoe Bend, was one of the Creek who made out well after the war. When he surrendered to Jackson, he received a promise of safe passage for Red Stick women and children, most of whom were now ill and hungry. It appears this deal with Jackson also allowed Red Eagle to retain his farm in southern Alabama.

Horseshoe Bend was not the last conflict between Jackson and the Creek. Rather than surrender, some Upper Creek fled to northern Florida where they allied themselves with the Seminole. For a brief time they received weapons from the British, but in 1814 England decided to concentrate on defeating Napoleon and stopped sending supplies. The Seminole continued to fight European American settlement anyway, first as part of the War of 1812, then in what became known as the First Seminole War (1818-1819). In 1818 Jackson led an army into Florida, then claimed by Spain, to stop the Seminole from attacking border settlements and providing refuge for slaves. This campaign increased Jackson’s popularity among American citizens, because he won victories that forced the Spanish to cede Florida to the United States. Many of the remaining American Indians then moved into the Florida swamps.

After Horseshoe Bend, the European American population of Georgia and Alabama continued to skyrocket. In the latter state, for example, the non­Indian population rose from 9,000 in 1810 to 310,000 in 1830. Despite increasing pressure from European American settlers, however, the Creek resisted attempts to force them to sell their lands. When William McIntosh, a mestizo chief, attempted to sell the U.S. virtually all the remaining Creek territory, the Creek council voted to execute him. Leading the party that carried out this sentence was Menawa, who had survived terrible injuries from Horseshoe Bend to regain a position of leadership among both Lower and Upper Creek.

Yet ultimately the Creek could not hold back the flood of European Americans into their homeland. In 1829 Jackson became president, in part because of the popularity he had acquired from his victories over American Indians. He decided to adopt the Indian policy favored by most Southerners who wanted more land: move the remaining tribes west of the Mississippi to "Indian Territory," what today is Oklahoma. The Cherokee, the Chickasaw, the Choctaw, the Creek and the Seminole—the "Five Civilized Tribes"—each had treaties signed by the U.S. giving them control of their lands, and in 1831 the Supreme Court upheld the Cherokee land titles. But the Jackson Administration ignored these facts and forced the five tribes to move.

Responses to federal policy varied. The relocation of the five tribes became known collectively as the "Trail of Tears," because it separated the tribes from their homelands and caused many deaths during the trip. Perhaps as many as 25,000 Creek (including Menawa) reluctantly took part. Other Creek decided to move south and continue fighting the U.S. government. In Florida, these Indians joined those Seminole who also refused to move; together they fought the Second Seminole War (1835-42). Finally, some Red Sticks slipped quietly into southwestern Alabama, joining other Creek who had moved there both before and after Horseshoe Bend. Today members of the dominant group in the area are known as "Poarch" Creek, a name whose origin is unclear.

Source: Compiled from George C. Mackenzie, "The Indian Breastwork in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend: Its Size, Location, and Construction," National Park Service, 1969; the National Park Service’s visitor’s guide for Horseshoe Bend National Military Park; Donald Hickey, The War of 1812, A Forgotten Conflict (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989); J. Leitch Wright, Creeks & Seminoles: The Destruction and Regeneration of the Muscogulge People (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992); J. Anthony Paredes, "Federal Recognition and the Poarch Creek Indians," in Paredes, ed., Indians of the Southeastern United States in the Late 20th Century (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989), 120-22.

¹Jackson Papers, first series, vol. XVIII, doc. 1586, Library of Congress.

²Donald Day and Harry Herbert Ullom, eds., The Autobiography of Sam Houston (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), 12.

source: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/54horseshoe/54facts3.htm

Andrew Jackson's map of the battleground
Please note that Andrew Jackson's map is oriented so that South is the top.

Courtesy of the Tennessee Historical Society, War Memorial Building,Nashville, TN 37243

A map drawn by Colonel John A. Cheatham, Jackson's topographical engineer.

(National Archives)

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