Horseshoe Bend 1814: Red Stick Breastworks and Jackson's 23 Million Acres

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The Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814 was the climax of a civil war inside the Creek Nation. Lower Creek towns near American settlements worked with U.S. agent Benjamin Hawkins and adopted Anglo-American farming, while traditionalist Upper Creek, the Red Sticks, named for their red war clubs, rejected land sales and assimilation, encouraged by Spanish Florida and by Tecumseh's 1811 visit. After Red Sticks attacked Fort Mims in August 1813, militias from Tennessee, Georgia and the Mississippi Territory marched south with Cherokee and Lower Creek allies while the regular Army fought Britain in the War of 1812.

Chief Menawa gathered about 1,000 warriors at Tohopeka inside a bend of the Tallapoosa River behind a zigzag log and earth breastwork that absorbed two hours of cannon fire. Andrew Jackson's 2,700 men, including the 39th U.S. Infantry, stormed the wall while General John Coffee's cavalry and allied warriors sealed the river. More than 800 Red Sticks died against fewer than 50 of Jackson's men. In the Treaty of Fort Jackson that August, Jackson took 23 million acres, including land of the Lower Creek who had fought beside him, a victory that launched him toward New Orleans and the White House.

• American troops counted enemy dead by cutting off the tips of noses and tanned skin from bodies into bridle reins.
• The zigzag wall created overlapping fields of fire, and packed earth swallowed cannonballs instead of shattering.
• Third Lieutenant Sam Houston kept fighting after a barbed arrow was torn from his thigh, then was shot twice in the shoulder.
• Cherokee and Lower Creek allies swam the river and took Red Stick canoes to attack from the rear.
• Menawa survived by hiding among the dead and escaped to Spanish Florida, while the Cherokee lost almost two million acres in the treaty.