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5 Before Horseshoe andrew Jackson’s Campaigns in the Creek War prior to horseshoe Bend Tom Kanon an anxious andrew Jackson, writing hurriedly to his wife from Fort Strother in early March 1814, told her he was “buried in preparations for a movement from this place,” a movement he promised would “put a speedy end to the Creek war.” “as soon as it is done,” he vowed, “I shall without delay return to your arms.”1 absent from his beloved Rachel for more than five months, Jackson was in the midst of planning an assault on the Creek Nation to hopefully bring an end to a war his fellow Tennesseans thought would never have lasted so long. on March 27, 1814, Jackson’s army of Tennessee volunteers and militia, US regular forces, and a contingency of Cherokee Indians conducted a crushing blow on the Creeks at their fortified village on the banks of the Tallapoosa River. approximately nine hundred Creek warriors perished on that fateful day, making it the most devastating combat loss for Native americans in North american history.2 This chapter traces the activities of the Tennessee army from the time the state declared war on the Creek Nation in September 1813 until the climactic battle at horseshoe Bend in March 1814. In the six months preceding that battle, andrew Jackson and his army crisscrossed the hilly landscape of what is now northern alabama, torching abandoned Indian villages, destroying Indian crops, and killing as many Red Stick Creeks as they could find. In reality, fighting Creek Indians became the least of Jackson’s worries. This chapter, therefore, concentrates less on Tennessee’s military engagements than it does the extenuating circumstances surrounding Jackson’s efforts to bring the Creek Nation to its knees. an analysis of Jackson’s campaigns in the Creek War prior to horseshoe Bend reveals a litany of stumbling blocks the Tennessee commander had to overcome during his quest to eliminate the Indian “threat” in the old Southwest . an extreme shortage of supplies, an uncompromising and unknown 106 kanon terrain, a disgruntled and undisciplined army whose fervor for war never matched his, political detractors at home, and constant physical pain vexed Jackson throughout most of the Creek War. In regard to the last-mentioned obstacle, historians should not be too quick in dismissing the fact that Jackson suffered from severe diarrhea and dysentery throughout the war, not to mention a bullet he carried in his left arm from a gunshot received during a fracas in Nashville prior to embarking on the campaign.3 one can only conjecture how these physical ailments must have affected Jackson’s judgment and personality—a personality already known for its irascibility and touchiness. on the other hand, one must admire andrew Jackson for his ability to perform as ably as he did in the field. No one pushed himself harder than Jackson to defeat his foes—in this case, the warring faction of the Creek Indians. Jackson’s aggressiveness is emblematic of his fellow westerners’ attitude toward Indian-settler relations in the Southwest in the early nineteenth century . The animosity between Indians and anglo-americans escalated after the Revolutionary War when white settlers began pushing at the boundaries of the Indian nations. Depredations by both sides resulted in a retaliatory state of affairs steeped in violence. In Tennessee, the desire to obtain navigational rights of exportable rivers to the Gulf of Mexico accentuated the clamor for Indian land. So important was this goal that Governor John Sevier told the state legislature in 1801 it would be “impossible that the state of Tennessee can long exist in any degree of credit and political respectability” without access to alabama’s river systems.4 an editorial from a Nashville newspaper, written on the eve of the War of 1812, described the Creek territory as “extremely beautiful and finely watered with excellent springs and navigable rivers.” Indeed, when Jackson issued his general orders to the Tennessee militia in July 1813—before the declaration of war against the Creeks—he offered his troops this incentive for the possible elimination of the Muscogee Nation: “The country to the South is inviting. Let us consolidate it as part of our Union. The soil which now lies waste and uncultivated, may be controverted [sic] into rich harvest fields, to supply the wants of millions.”5 Ironically, then, the very elements that made the Muscogees a prosperous nation—an invaluable river system and “inviting” soil—also led to their eventual...

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