Horseshoe Bend National Military Park

A View of the Battlefield

Andrew Jackson Overlook

Andrew Jackson’s army arrived at Horseshoe Bend about 10 a.m. on March 27, 1814. Brig Gen. John Coffee ’s mounted infantry and Indian allies crossed the Tallapoosa about three miles downstream and encircled the "horseshoe" so the Red Sticks could not get help from other towns or escape by swimming the river. Jackson deployed his own militia and regulars across the field and placed his artillery on the hill to the right. Straight ahead, behind their log barricade (marked by the line of white stakes), 1,000 Red Stick warriors awaited Jackson.

Note: This hill, called Cotton Patch Hill for its terraced cultivation before the park was created, is steep.

John Coffee takes the Island

On March 27, Coffee ordered 40 men of Lt. Jesse Bean’s Tennessee militia company to occupy this 15-acre island. Their mission was to prevent Red Stick warriors seeking refuge there. Many Creeks did attempt to escape to the island but were "sunk by Lt. Bean’s command ere they reached the bank."

The Barricade

The log breastwork the Red Sticks built across the peninsula was, Jackson wrote, "eighty-poles in length, from five to eight feet high & of remarkable compactness & strength…" It was "prepared with double rows of Port Holes well formed & skilfully[sic] arranged, [and] was of such a figure that an Army could not approach it, without being exposed to a cross fire." Just before the battle, Jackson placed two small cannon here, a 3-pounder and a 6-pounder, trained on the barricade. About 10:30 a.m., he "opened a brisk fire upon its centre; but altho[sic] the balls which passed through killed several of the enemy, they were not dispursed[sic], nor was any important damage done to the works." Finally, at 12:30 p.m., Jackson ordered a frontal attack of the Creek population.

Surging forward, his troops quickly overran the barricade and, after vicious hand-to-hand fighting, drove the Red Sticks down the peninsula toward Coffee’s mounted infantry and Indian allies. "The event could no longer be in doubt," Jackson would later write. "The enemy altho[sic] many of them fought to the last with the kind of bravery desperation inspires, were at last entirely routed and cut to pieces. The whole margin of the river which surrounded the peninsula was strewed with the slain."

Cherokee Crossing

The Red Sticks gathered in the "horseshoe" hoped the encircling river would protect them from Jackson’s attack. But Jackson surrounded the bend with his allied warriors, who, led by a Cherokee named Whale, Launched a surprise rear attack into Tohopeka village. The warriors crossed the river in canoes stolen from the Creeks, Coffee said, "advanced into the village & very soon drove the enemy up from the bank of the river" to the barricade then under attack by Jackson’s militia and regulars. Coffee also said that "attempts to cross the river at all points of the bend were made by the enemy but not one escaped, very few ever reached the bank, and those were killed the very instant they landed."

Tohopeka Village for Red Sticks

Tohopeka (meaning fort or fortification) was a temporary Red Stick village begun several months before the battle. The warriors’ families wintered here in log huts while the men built the barricade across the peninsula. The women and children stayed here during the battle. The Cherokees burned Tohopeka during their assault on the Red Sticks’ position. After the fighting ended, 350 Red Stick women and children were taken prisoner.

Newyaucau Town and the Aftermath

This Upper Creek town, across the river to the northeast, was named for the 1790 Treaty of New York guaranteeing Creek lands and perpetual friendship with the United States. Georgia militia under Maj. Gen. David Adams burned it before the battle, and its people joined the other refugees at Tohopeka.

After the battle the surrounding land and much of east-central Alabama remained Creek. This area was not ceded to the United States under the Treaty of Fort Jackson, and Creek people continued to live here until the 1830s. Starting in 1836 the U.S. Army forcibly removed over 19,000 Creeks from Alabama.