The Creek War of 1813 and 1814

By Henry S. Halbert and T. H. Ball

Immerse yourself in the dramatic and pivotal events of early American history with Henry S. Halbert and T. H. Ball's The Creek War of 1813 and 1814. This meticulously researched account offers a comprehensive and detailed examination of the Creek War, a crucial conflict that reshaped the southeastern United States and significantly impacted the future of Native American and American relations.

Halbert and Ball, both esteemed historians, provide an in-depth narrative of the causes, battles, and aftermath of the Creek War, highlighting the key figures and strategic maneuvers that defined this tumultuous period. Through their scholarly yet engaging prose, readers gain a vivid understanding of the complexities and stakes involved in the struggle between the Creek Confederacy and the United States.

The book delves into the socio-political landscape of the early 19th century, exploring the internal divisions within the Creek Nation and the external pressures from American expansionism. It chronicles significant events such as the Battle of Burnt Corn, the Fort Mims massacre, and the decisive Battle of Horseshoe Bend, where future President Andrew Jackson emerged as a prominent military leader.

The Creek War of 1813 and 1814 is not just a recounting of military engagements; it also provides valuable insights into the cultural and personal dimensions of the conflict. Halbert and Ball’s thorough research and balanced perspectives shed light on the experiences and motivations of both the Creek people and American settlers, offering a nuanced view of this historical epoch.

This book is an essential read for history enthusiasts, scholars, and anyone interested in the Native American history and early American warfare. Halbert and Ball's work stands as a definitive account of the Creek War, providing readers with a deeper appreciation of the war's significance and its lasting legacy on American history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Porirua Publishing
• Release date: Jun 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9781991305589

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Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

PREFACE 7

INTRODUCTION. 9

CHAPTER I. — THE CHOCTAW-MUSCOGEE TRIBES. 12

CHAPTER II. — CAUSES OF THE CREEK WAR. 15

CHAPTER III. — TECUMSEH AMONG THE CHICKASAWS AND CHOCTAWS. 22

NOTES. 28

CHAPTER IV. — TECUMSEH AMONG THE CREEKS. 31

NOTES. 39

CHAPTER V. — THE WAR CLOUD GATHERING. 45

APPENDIX. 55

CHAPTER VI. — THE STOCKADES. 58

NOTES. 65

CHAPTER VII. — INTER-TRIBAL COUNCILS OF THE CREEKS AND THE CHOCTAWS. 68

NOTES. 69

CHAPTER VIII. — THE BATTLE OF BURNT CORN. 71

NOTES. 79

CHAPTER IX. — FORT MIMS. 80

NOTES. 91

CHAPTER X. — THE KIMBELL—JAMES MASSACRE. 98

NOTE. 100

CHAPTER XI. — ATTACK ON FORT SINQUEFIELD. 102

NOTES. 108

CHAPTER XII. — THE NIGHT COURIER. 110

CHAPTER XIII. — INCIDENTS OF THE WAR IN THE FORK. 113

NOTES. 115

CHAPTER XIV. — CHOCTAWS AND CHICKASAWS JOIN THE AMERICAN ARMY. 116

NOTES: 119

CHAPTER XV. — THE BASHI SKIRMISH. 120

CHAPTER XVI. — BEARD AND TANDY WALKER. 122

CHAPTER XVII. — THE CANOE FIGHT. 125

CHAPTER XVIII. — BATTLE OF THE HOLY GROUND. 131

NOTES. 141

CHAPTER XIX. — THE WAR IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. 143

CHAPTER XX. — CLOSING EVENTS. 1814. 149

CONCLUSION. 153

APPENDIX. 157

THE PANIC. 157

HIGH-HEAD JIM OR JIM BOY. 160

DEATH OF PUSHMATAHA. 160

ALABAMA’S FIRST CAPITAL. 164

INDIAN NAMES. 167

INDIAN BORDER WARS. 168

CARD OF THANKS. 170

THE CREEK WAR OF

1813 AND 1814.

BY

H. S. HALBERT AND T. H. BALL.

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T. H. BALL,

Historical Secretary of the Old Settlers’ Association of Lake County, Indiana;

Honorary member of Lake County Teachers’ Association;

Active Member of Indiana Academy of Science;

Corresponding Member of Wisconsin State Historical Society;

Honorary Member of Trinity Historical Society of Texas.

Author of

Lake County, 1834-1872,

Lake of the Red Cedars,

Clarke County, Alabama,

Notes on Luke’s Gospel

Poems and Hymns

Annie B., &c., &c.

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H. S. HALBERT,

Member of Mississippi State Historical Society;

Member of Alabama State Historical Society;

Contributor to American Antiquarian;

Contributor to Alabama Historical Reporter.

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PREFACE

WHEN this work was commenced, several years ago, it was not expected that it would become in size what it has grown to be. It was then expected only to give facts in regard to the Creek war as connected with the white settlers in what is now South Alabama, giving especially a fuller account of the attack on Fort Sinquefield with other gathered reminiscences and traditions. But when large libraries were examined and many historical works were consulted, and so little that was really reliable could be found in regard to that border war, and its real beginning seeming to be altogether unknown to Northern writers, it was thought best to make thorough research and to prepare a somewhat voluminous work for the sake of those, or for the use of those, who, in years to come, in the North as well as in the South, might justly be expected to be interested in a work as full, and, in some respects, as minute in details, as this.

If, therefore, any readers should think that some of the chapters, as those in regard to Tecumseh and Fort Mims, are more full than was needful, or that, in some others, too many personal, biographical incidents and sketches or notes are given, let them please bear in mind that the work is designed for more than one class of readers; let the more critical charitably trust that there will be some readers interested in the minute details and the apparent digressions; and let all who may read rest assured that the authors have, with the idea of different classes of readers before their minds, endeavored faithfully to obtain and impartially to present historic truth.

November 19, 1894.

Well may the inhabitants of Alabama, especially, say in regard to the Red men,

"Though ‘mid the forests where they roved,

There rings no hunter’s shout,

Yet their names are on our waters,

And we may not wash them out;"

for well, of the Indian tongue, as speaking in the flowing waters, does an Alabama poet say,

"‘Tis heard where CHATTAHOOCHEE pours

His yellow tide along;

It sounds on TALLAPOOSA’S shores,

And COOSA swells the song;

Where lordly ALABAMA sweeps,

The symphony remains;

And young CAHAWBA proudly keeps

The echo of its strains;

Where TUSCALOOSA’S waters glide,

From stream and town ‘tis heard,

And dark TOMBECKBEE’S winding tide

Repeats the olden word;

Afar, where Nature brightly wreathed

Fit Edens for the free,

Along TUSCUMBIA’S bank ‘tis breathed,

By stately TENNESSEE;

And south, where, from CONECUH’S springs,

ESCAMBIA’S waters steal,

The ancient melody still rings,—

From TENSAW and MOBILE."

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INTRODUCTION.

THIS work proposes to give as accurate an account as can now be obtained from written and printed records, from traditions, and from personal observation, of that portion of American history known as the Creek War of 1813 and 1814.

Of these Creek Indians says BREWER, author of a history of Alabama: In 1813 and 1814 they waged the bloodiest war against the whites anywhere recorded in the annals of the United States.

Says MEEK, one of Alabama’s talented orators and poets: Time as it passed on and filled these solitudes with settlers, at last brought the most sanguinary era in Alabama history.

And PICKETT, recognized as Alabama’s leading historian, says: Everything foreboded the extermination of the Americans in Alabama, who were the most isolated and defenseless people imaginable.

The reader who comes to our Conclusion may be disposed to change BREWER’S statement; but he will not question the statements of PICKETT and MEEK.

But this work does not propose to give in full that part of the conflict waged in the Indian country which broke the power of the fierce Muscogees; but rather that part which has not been as yet so fully given, connected with the white settlers in what is now South Alabama. This portion of our American history, as connected with Indian border warfare, the authors of this work believe will be given more accurately and fully than has ever been done before. They propose to do justice to the Indians and justice to the whites.

For this portion of history they hope to make this work an authority. And for this they suggest the possession of some special fitness.

H. S. Halbert is a member of the State Historical Societies of Alabama and Mississippi. He was born in Alabama, and was, in a great measure, educated by the late Dr. J. H. Eaton, of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He spent a portion of his early manhood in Indian campaigns on the western frontier, where he became familiar with the sight of the wild warrior with his bow and quiver, his paint and feathers; and there be conceived an abiding interest in the strange history and destiny of the American Indians. He has also been not a little among the civilized tribes of the Indian Territory. After four years of service in the Confederate army, he was for a number of years engaged in teaching in Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama. While pursuing his profession in the two latter states he devoted much of his leisure to historical researches. He visited the homes and interviewed some surviving soldiers and contemporaries of the Creek war of 1813 and noted down their varied recollections, thereby collecting much new material for the history of that war. He was especially fortunate in securing from these aged survivors a full account of the attack on Fort Sinquefield, of which only a meagre sketch is recorded in the histories of Meek and Pickett.

For a number of years past he has been engaged in educational work among the Choctaws of Mississippi, with whose language, customs, and traditions he is familiar. From the immediate descendants of some of Pushmataha’s warriors he has been enabled to rescue from oblivion a number of incidents in the career of that noted Mingo, and many facts in regard to Tecumseh’s Southern visit. He has, in short, been interested largely for years in studies and investigations connected with the Southern Indians, and has visited in person and examined with care the Burnt Corn and Holy Ground battlefields. The Alabama Historical Reporter for January, 1885, said: Mr. H. S. Halbert is now doing more than any man in the South, perhaps, in collecting everything connected with the Southern Indians in the shape of history, tradition, romance, legend, etc.

T. H. Ball had an early home in the state of Georgia, before 1833, not far from the Savannah River, and learned some of the customs and ways of the South; but in 1837, when eleven years of age, his home was transferred to the then almost untenanted solitudes of Northwestern Indiana (where the great prairie region of the West joined the woodland growth that extended to the Atlantic) and to the banks of a beautiful lake in the region then but lately occupied by the Pottawatomie Indians, some thirty-six miles from the old Fort Dearborn of Lake Michigan, some seventy-two miles from the Tippecanoe battle ground. He gained in those years of boyhood some knowledge of the Indians—Indians that had been associated with French missionaries and with fur traders—as he saw them in their wigwams, on their ponies, in their large birch-bark canoes, and when returning from the chase, and took a deep interest in Indian history and in pioneer and hunter life. His young footsteps followed the wild game and his rifle secured it where his almost immediate predecessors had been Indian hunters.

From 1851 to 1855 he resided as a teacher in Clarke county, Alabama, and was there again no small part of the time in 1859 and 1860, and from 1874 to 1883. With the region around the old Fort Sinquefield he became thoroughly familiar, examined carefully the location of Fort Madison and Fort Glass, saw the location of Fort White, and became well acquainted with all that early center of white settlement and of once crowded stockades.

Eggleston relies much upon Meek for localities and for facts in Clarke county, saying that he was familiar with that region. But neither Meek, nor even Pickett, seems to have had any personal knowledge of that fifteen hundred square miles of area now constituting Clarke county, Alabama. No other writer on this portion of history, has, so far as appears, been on the very ground of these forts and so has had a personal knowledge of the geography and topography of this region. Knowledge thus gained, and applied in some portions of this history, is what is meant by personal observation in the first sentence of this Introduction. And not only did this writer have an opportunity to examine these localities well, but he was an inmate for several months in the home of Major Austill of the Canoe Fight, then residing near the old Fort Carney, was well acquainted with Isham Kimbell, Esq., a survivor of the Kimbell-James massacre, and with others who as men and women or as children were in the different forts, and who passed through the trying scenes of the summer and fall of 1813.

In a valuable history of Indiana, by DeWitt C; Goodrich and Professor Charles R. Tuttle, a table is given, with names and dates, of Sixteen American Wars. Among these are named King Philip’s 1677, Tecumseh’s 1811, First Seminole 1817, Black Hawk’s 1832, Second Seminole 1845; but of the Creek War no mention is made. Did the writers forget that war? Or did they consider it of no importance?

That the Creek war should be better known at the South than in the North is natural; and that there, at least, it should be considered quite as deserving of a name and place among American Wars as Black Hawk’s War or as Tecumseh’s, is also natural. But surely the time has come, especially now, since that gathering of the millions on Lake Michigan’s shore at the Columbian Exposition, the great World’s Fair of 1893, when those who read and study our history in all parts of the land should be restricted to no localities and influenced by no prejudices in looking at our various conflicts with the Indian tribes.

The youth of the South should know something of the Pequods and the Narragansetts and of King Philip and of Black Hawk and of Pontiac, as should those of the North of Weatherford and of Big Warrior, and of Choctaws, Seminoles, and Muscogees.

Of the authors of this history it may be noticed that one was born in New England and the other in the South; that one was with the Confederates in that war that opened in 1861, and the other was, in the years of that strife in New England and Indiana, graduating at the Newton Theological Institution in 1863, standing constantly under the stars and stripes; that both have spent years in the South and have many friends there; and that both, as true Americans, and as interested in all facts connected with the aboriginees of this country, having devoted years of life to teaching, have here united their efforts to prepare for those who are now and who are yet to be, in the East and the West, in the North Central States and in the South, a readable, a full, an accurate account of that truly bloody Creek War. These statements are made as suggesting that the writers of this volume, both as free as any who can easily be found from local and educational prejudices and favoritisms, each having pursued his own line of research, are not without some special qualifications for the work which they have undertaken.

H. S. H.

T. H. B.

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THE CREEK WAR

CHAPTER I. — THE CHOCTAW-MUSCOGEE TRIBES.

THE Creek War of 1813 and 1814 is remarkable from the fact that all the branches of what ethnologists style the Choctaw-Muscogee stock of Indians were involved therein and took a part, on one side or the other, of that bloody conflict. As these tribes acted a prominent part in the early history of the Gulf States, a brief notice of their topographic location and ethnic affinites may, perhaps, be of interest to the general reader.

From incontrovertible linguistic evidence, it is certain that the habitat of the tribes composing the Choctaw-Muscogee family was much the same in the days of De Soto, in 1540, as it was in more recent historical times. If the Creeks, or any or all their congeners, ever migrated from Mexico, it must have been centuries before the advent of the Spanish invader. Whatever may be thought of Le Clerc Milfort’s migration legend, the fact stands that De Soto found towns bearing Muscogee names in Alabama. Dr. A. S. Gatschet, the distinguished Indianologist, after a thorough study of the dialects of the Choctaw-Muscogee tribes, has subdivided the family into four branches.

The first and most prominent of these branches is the Creeks or Muscogees proper, whose settlements were upon the Coosa, the Tallapoosa, and the Chattahoochee. During the entire existence of the Creek Confederacy in Alabama, those living on the Coosa and Tallapoosa bore the appellation of Upper Creeks, whilst those on the Chattahoochee were known as Lower Creeks. The Seminoles of Florida are only a body of seceded Muscogees.

The second branch is the Hitchitees, whose towns were on the Chattahoochee, and who, living nearer the Lower Creeks, were assigned to that political division of the Creek Confederacy. The Mickasukees of Leon county, Florida, are an off-shoot of the Hitchitees and speak the same language. The Apalachees, who were a numerous and powerful people in Florida in the days of De Narvaez and De Soto, spoke a language closely related to that of the Hitchitees. The last remnant of the Apalachees were living in Louisiana, in 1830, numbering forty six souls—perhaps, now, all extinct.

The third branch is the Alibamos and Coshattees, (less correct form Coosawdas,) whose homes were mostly situated on the Alabama River, just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa. Politically, these two tribes belonged to the Upper Creeks. When the French abandoned Fort Toulouse, in 1763, many of the Alibamos followed them across the Mississippi into Louisiana. These seceders eventually settled in Polk county, Texas, where they have a settlement to this day. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, many of the Coshattees also emigrated west and finally settled near the Alibamos. The language of both tribes is substantially the same. The Alibamos that remained in their native seats occupied, at the outbreak of the war of 1813, six villages, viz.: Wetumka, situated on the Coosa, Muklasa, on the Tallapoosa, Ecunchattee, now a part of the city of Montgomery, Towassa on the same side of the river, three miles below Ecunchattee, Pawoktee, two miles below Towassa, and Autaugee, four miles below Pawoktee, but on the north bank of the river and near the mouth of a creek of the same name. The language of the Alibamos approximates nearer to the Choctaw than to the Muscogee, and their tribal name is undoubtedly of Choctaw origin and signifies Vegetation-gatherers, i.e. gatherers of vegetation in clearing land for agricultural purposes. Alba, vegetation, amo, gather. From this tribe, the Alabama River received its name, and the state, from the river. Alibamo is the correct form of the word, having as noted above, the prosaic signification of vegetation-gatherer; for modern research has forever annihilated the romance of Here we rest. The Coshattees, the kinsfolk of the Alibamos, lived, in 1813, on the northern bank of the Alabama River, three miles below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa. The present American town of Coosauda occupies the site of the old Coshattee town.

The fourth or western branch of the Choctaw-Muscogee stock of Indians are the Choctaws and Chickasaws, whose homes were mostly in the present state of Mississippi, the Choctaws occupying the central and southern, and the Chickasaws, the northern part. Both tribes speak the same language. The country between the Tombigbee and the Black Warrior, from time immemorial, had been disputed territory between the Choctaws and the Creeks, though Choctaw settlements, more or less transitory, always existed on the east side of the Tombigbee.

There is no doubt but the territory of the Choctaws, in the days of De Soto, extended farther to the east than in more recent times. The people of the town of Mauvila, destroyed by De Soto, were of Choctaw lineage, as is evidenced by the name of their chief, Tascalusa, Black Warrior. Mauvila, too, may be the Choctaw Moelih, a plural of action, signifying to row, to paddle, to scull, and the inhabitants of the town, as we may conjecture, may have received this name, the rowers, in consequence of their riparian situation, which necessitated a constant use of boats in navigating the river. Mobile, a French abbreviated corruption of Mauvila, is called by the modern Choctaws, Mo-il-la, a form bearing a close resemblance to both Mauvila and Moelih.{1} The people of the province of Pafallaya were also Choctaws—a fact attested by the name itself—Pafallaya, by elision from Pashfallaya, the long-haired.

The Chickasaws, who occupied not only North Mississippi, but also a part of Northwest Alabama, were a more martial people than their Choctaw kindred. No enemy, white or red, ever defeated them in battle. They made a fierce resistance to the invasion of De Soto and their subsequent wars with the French have added a luminous chapter to the annals of the Southwest.

But not all the peoples living within the territorial bounds of the Choctaw-Muscogee tribes were of kindred blood. Living within and forming a component part of the Creek Confederacy were some allophylic elements. The Uchees, who claim to be the most ancient inhabitants of the country and whose language has no affinity with any other American tongue, were, in the eighteenth century, incorporated into the Confederacy and enrolled as Lower Creeks. In like manner, among the Upper Creeks, were enrolled many Shawnees, a people of the Algonquin stock. Sawanogee, on the Tallapoosa, was a Shawnee town, subject to the Creek laws. A remnant of the celebrated Natchez tribe also lived among the Upper Creeks, having a village on Tallahatchee Creek, a tributary of the Coosa.

Of the Choctaw-Muscogee tribes, the Creeks, or Muscogees proper, stood pre-eminent over all the others, not only for prowess in war, but for political sagacity. The beginning of their famous Confederacy is lost in the depths of antiquity. The Muscogees, it seems, having gained, in ancient times, a supremacy over the contiguous tribes, adopted the custom of receiving into a political system tribes that they had subjugated in war, or else, broken or fugitive tribes that applied to them for protection. A district was forthwith assigned to the new allies, who were allowed to retain the use of their own language and customs, but were required to furnish aid for the maintenance and defense of the Confederacy. Towards the close of the eighteenth century a tradition was current among the Creeks that the Alibamos were the first tribe received into the Confederacy, then the Coshattees, then the Natchez, and last, the Uchees and Shawnees.

When the French first came in contact with the Southern Indians, early in the eighteenth century the Creek Confederacy already had a vigorous existence. Its power continually strengthened, until, in the early years of the nineteenth century, it stood forth, able to confront, for near ten months, the trained armies of the Federal Government and to threaten even the very existence of the numerous American communities within the present states of Mississippi and Alabama.

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CHAPTER II. — CAUSES OF THE CREEK WAR.

THE part of Alabama, with which, mainly, this work has to do, has had a peculiar history and also some peculiar inhabitants. It may be well to rehearse briefly this history.

Every well informed American knows that Spain at first claimed and afterwards held Florida by right of discovery and its northern boundary was undefined; that Georgia, as the last of the thirteen colonies, was settled by the English in 1733; and that the French came down the Mississippi as early as 1682, and claimed from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. In 1763 France ceded to Great Britain nearly all her claims east of the Mississippi and Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain.{2} The English divided Florida into two provinces, calling one East and the other West Florida. The latter extended as far north as latitude 32º 28′, which was the southern boundary of the English province called Illinois. As early as 1700-1699—the French commencing settlements on Mobile Bay, claimed what is now Alabama, and they held it for sixty-four years. They made some settlements up the Mobile and Tensaw rivers. In 1777 Anglo-Saxon or American settlements commenced along these rivers and up the Tombigbee. In 1783 West Florida went again into the possession of Spain, and the Spanish officials did not retire south of latitude 31º until 1799. During the War of the Revolution, and so long as Spanish rule continued, this river region attracted settlers from the Carolinas who were not satisfied with American independence. But after 1800, following the royalists or tories, came also the loyal and true American pioneers. The flags of three nations therefore, of France, of England, and of Spain, had waved over the waters of these rivers before the stars and stripes, in 1799 were here unfurled.

Before proceeding further in the history we may look at some of the peculiar inhabitants.

Of this whole south-eastern portion of the country a characteristic feature was, in the latter part