The members of state militias along the southwestern frontier could be both the best and the most exasperating of soldiers. They were combative, inured to hardship, fiercely loyal to their own chosen leaders, and spectacularly effective in their own environment. They were fiercely independent, with deep mistrust for distant authority. Enlisted for periods of service as short as 60 days, they were prone to simply leave the army to attend to the needs of their farms and families.
The culture of the frontier was derived largely from the Ulster Scots whose remote ancestors plagued the Romans on the northern borderlands of England until the frustrated Romans built Hadrian’s Wall to hold them at bay. In bloody wars with England the Scots were fierce if erratic warriors. Leaders such as William Wallace and Robert the Bruce led by “approval from below,” based on personal prowess and charisma. Eventually conquered by England, many lowland and border Scots were transported to Northern Ireland to work the new Ulster Plantation. Victimized by religious and nationalistic wars, many emigrated to the new colonies in North America.
The new immigrants found conditions in the fertile coastal plain regions, dominated by English landlords, unpalatable. In many colonies even their Presbyterian marriages were not legal. Some colonies encouraged them to move westward into the Appalachian Mountains to provide a warlike buffer population against the equally warlike Indian tribes.3
Restless settlers spilled over the mountains to settle Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Mississippi Territory, which then included Alabama. Farther south along the margin of the Gulf Coastal Plain, settlers intermingled with others moving westward from the Georgia Colony. Descendants of transported convicts, they too held little love for the Crown. The Ulster Scots culture easily absorbed outsiders, and waves of immigrants from other lands were absorbed into the developing frontier culture.
In the early days of the American War of Independence the southern colonies were not actively hostile to Britain. Wealthy planters of the coastal region wished to continue trade, and the frontier folk wished only to be left alone. Lord General Cornwallis’s “Southern Strategy” soon changed that. Determined to separate the southern colonies from New England, Cornwallis launched a major offensive in the Carolinas. Subordinate commanders such as the infamous Lieutenant Colonel Sir Banastre Tarleton launched campaigns of terror, killing prisoners and destroying the property of rebels and Loyalists alike.
The brutality would come to haunt the British Army, hardening rebel resistance. One seemingly insignificant victim was a 13-year-old messenger boy, Andrew Jackson. Taken captive, legend has it that when Jackson refused to clean the boots of a drunken British officer, the man slashed him across the face and arm with his sword. Released in a prisoner exchange, he was left an orphan when all his brothers died in British captivity and his widowed mother died of disease while nursing prisoners. Jackson grew into a man not likely to forget or forgive.
The state militias did not particularly distinguish themselves in the war, but at King’s Mountain, South Carolina (October 7, 1780), “over the mountains” frontiersmen trapped and destroyed a British force. Then, characteristically, they went home. The militias also played a significant role in the decisive British defeat at Cowpens, also in South Carolina (January 17, 1781). Both battles became legendary on the frontier.
In 1812 all adult males between 16 and 60 years of age were subject to military conscription into state militias. Individual states regulated their own militias and jealously guarded against interference by the federal government.
The best and most reliable units were the standing militia units, organized by region. These units mustered for annual training and were equipped at their own expense. In contrast, volunteer militias were enlisted for short terms of service and usually not well equipped or trained. The short enlistment terms of volunteer militias would plague Andrew Jackson throughout the Creek War. Even his decisive final offensive was delayed by the expiration of the service terms of his army of 60-day volunteers.
Drafted militias were conscripted – often unwillingly – from local government voting rolls. Usually with poor morale, they were not considered to be as reliable as other units and were most often used as laborers or to garrison small forts.
These Creek re-enactors are wearing typical attire of the period – long shirts, leggings, and moccasins. The tribe was extensively intermarried with settlers and traders, and many Creeks were three-quarters or more genetically white. The man in the background is holding a stickball racket. The Creeks called this violent game “the little brother to war.” (Author)
By 1800 the Indian tribes along the southwestern frontier were extensively intermarried with white settlers. Many Creek leaders had one-quarter or less Native ancestry; their best-known leaders were William Weatherford (Red Eagle) and Alexander McGillivray.
The Creeks had long carried on a lucrative trade in deer hides, and the “Lower Creeks” of the Gulf Coastal Plain were quite assimilated into the white economy. The “Upper Creeks” in the mountains of Alabama were less assimilated, and therein lay the seeds of the Creek War.4 The Creek Confederacy was under pressure from settlers pushing in from the east (Georgia), west (Mississippi Territory), and north (Tennessee).
In early 1811 the Shawnee chief Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet journeyed from the Great Lakes region in an attempt to foment trouble. They met with a cool reception but planted the idea of a movement to eliminate white influence. This burgeoned into the Red Stick movement, named for the traditional Creek war club stained with a mineral dye.
The movement divided the Creek Nation, with the strongholds of the Red Sticks in the Upper Creek towns. Atrocities such as the Duck River killings, committed by Creeks passing through Tennessee, fueled hostilities. Creek leaders and Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins labored to calm the situation. By 1813 the Red Sticks had failed to enlist the Choctaw in their war plans, and the struggle was largely a civil war within the Creek Nation. The Red Sticks assembled at Holy Ground, west of the present city of Montgomery, Alabama, and prepared to eradicate settlements of mixed-race Creeks in the river valleys north of Mobile. Not scorning the white man’s weapons, they sent a supply column to Pensacola to obtain gunpowder and lead from the Spanish. En route they took hostages and burned farms.
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TENNESSEE MILITIA, CREEK WAR AND WAR OF 1812 These three militiamen depict the variations in the basic militia uniform, particularly the hunting shirt and field equipment. The figure at left represents an affluent member of an established pre-war militia regiment. He wears the uniform of a hunting shirt and trousers, and is armed with a privately purchased rifle. The drab cloth is more typical of the latter periods of the Creek War and subsequent campaigns, as are the canvas army leggings. He is also equipped with a butcher’s knife at his belt, a camp knife worn around the neck, and rifle tools on a lanyard around his neck. The center figure is a member of a wartime volunteer militia regiment in the New Orleans campaign, wearing the uniform of drab-colored hunting shirt and trousers. Additional gear provided by the Federal government to the state of Tennessee includes a smoothbore musket and bayonet (held by the left hand), white cloth cross-belts supporting the bayonet and black leather shot pouch, and leggings. The figure at right is a gun captain in the Nashville Volunteers artillery company, wearing the early war blue uniform. He is armed with a privately purchased sword, and wears a leather thumb-stock, used to plug the vent while swabbing the cannon’s tube, on his right hand. Additional gear, clockwise from lower left, includes: a powder horn made from a cow’s horn; a boat gun – a cut-down musket suitable for firing from a canoe – with a woven wool sling; a hand-carved shot gauge used to hold shot for immediate use; a butcher knife and simple belt sheath; a metal canteen; one of several designs of tomahawks, this one with a cloth cover; typical weapon tools – pan brush, powder measure, vent pick, and screwdriver; a small camp knife, which often substituted for a screwdriver to seat musket flints, and pan brush; another type of trade tomahawk, this one with a riveted leather sheath; gourd canteen with leather cover and carved wooden plug; and a metal drinking cup with a deer-antler flint knapper attached. The knapper was used to shape musket flints. |
FIRST CREEK CAMPAIGNS
The initial plan was to attack the Creek Nation with four armies: Georgia (Floyd), East Tennessee (Cocke), West Tennessee (Jackson), and Mississippi (Claiborne). The elaborate plan foundered on poor logistics, short enlistment terms, and Cocke’s political ambitions. Battle sites mentioned in the text are: TL (Tallaseehatchee), TD (Talladega), HT (Hillabee Towns), AC (Autosee/Calabee Creek), HG (Holy Ground), Burnt Corn, and Fort Mims.
Settlers began to gather at defensive stockades along the rivers of southern Alabama. The Creeks at Pensacola boasted of their power to the Spanish governor and announced their intention to attack settlers in the Tombigbee and Alabama River valleys.
Colonel James Caller called out the Mississippi militia, and a force of mounted volunteer militiamen assembled to intercept the Creek supply party. Gathering more recruits along the way, the militia rode into southern Alabama, tarrying only to elect a new suite of officers, as was typical of the militias.
About 180 militiamen surprised the Red Sticks encamped near Burnt Corn Creek. Achieving nearly complete surprise, the militia drove the Red Sticks across the creek, but the larger part of the militia force stopped to loot the supply train.
The Red Sticks counterattacked, and despite the best efforts of a few officers, routed the militia, who succeeded in carrying off most of the munitions in their panicky flight. The militia straggled back across the Tombigbee River, and reportedly “each man mustered himself out of service.” The Red Sticks resolved to eradicate the mixed-race settlers. Most of their attacks failed, but the August 30, 1813, assault on Fort Mims resulted in one of the largest frontier massacres in American history. A few survivors escaped the four-hour battle to carry tales of Red Stick atrocities.
Sixteen-year-old farm boy Billy McCullough heard of the Fort Mims Massacre and observed the outrage it caused in central Tennessee. Before the corn harvest Billy had free time to spend in town, listening to the men talk about the state legislature’s call for 3,500 men under Major General of Militia Andrew Jackson. The desire for war was by no means universal. Most argued that the deaths of over 500 (an exaggerated number) at Fort Mims must be avenged and Tennessee made safe from a repetition of the Duck River killings. Unknown to Billy were the machinations of land speculators who coveted the expansive Creek lands. Others argued that it was not Tennessee’s problem. Still, the Red Sticks were an undeniable threat.
One day Billy noticed two men moving a table onto the porch of a prominent lawyer’s office, and stopped to gawk. “Son, you gonna join the militia and protect your ma and sisters?” inquired one. Billy replied that he had “not rightly considered it,” but he was willing to be convinced. Like many, he had been raised on stories of fighting in the Revolutionary War and was as eager as any to enlist.
The officer and his sergeant posted several inflammatory newspaper articles and political cartoons depicting events at Fort Mims and elsewhere. A printed broadsheet announced Governor Willie Blount’s order authorizing a force of volunteer militia.
The militia officer promised a short campaign of adventure and “Maybe even a chance to get at the lobsterbacks,” using an old term for the British. “You’ll get eight dollars a month hard money and free rations.” The regiment had already participated in the early 1813 expedition to secure Natchez, but had not seen any fighting.
Billy signed the ledger book with a quill pen and accepted the first of his promised pay, a few silver bits.5
“Congratulations, son.” The officer motioned to an older man. “Sergeant, issue this man a weapon and gear.” Billy was handed an old musket and surplus military cross-belts with an ammunition pouch and bayonet – but no ammunition. “Stand right here, son. You’re my guard.”
A crowd of the usual townsmen and farmers in town for market day had gathered. Billy listened as men came to enlist or simply to argue. In the newspapers Major Beasley had become a scapegoat for the Fort Mims incident. He had tapped a keg of whiskey for distribution to his troops the day before, and each afternoon the guards took a post-lunch nap. He had argued with a scout who warned of the enemy approach, and he had a slave, who reported prowling Red Sticks flogged (the master of another refused to allow his man to be punished). Sand had washed against the stockade gate, and it could not be closed when the attack came.
Others argued that the Tombigbee country was the Mississippi Territory’s problem. Still, women and children had been brutally murdered and scalped, defenders of the blockhouse burned alive in the ruins, and slaves killed or carried away.6
Billy spent the remainder of the day listening to the arguments and watching men sign the enlistment ledger. Like him, they received instructions on where to report when summoned and the personal gear they were expected to provide. The officer quizzed men to determine which ones possessed certain useful skills. A few were recruited as specialists: drivers for teams of animals used to pull the supply train, clerks, men who possessed some experience working with sick humans or animals to serve as surgeons’ mates, and musicians. Musicians who could play the infantry’s traditional fife or drum were particularly important. They would be taught to play simple signals used to control the men amid the noise and confusion of battle.
For many the enlistment day provided an excuse for drinking the harsh whiskey that was a frontier staple. A few drunken fights broke out, but none of the serious ones that often left men permanently maimed or missing an eye. The officer finally dismissed Billy with instructions that he would be summoned when the company mustered into service. The sergeant was careful to recover the musket and gear.
“Pa” McCullough, a hardened and prematurely old man of 55, was not as pleased as Billy had expected. He worked himself into a rage at the British, the Creeks, and most of all the militia officers who “ought to have more sense.” He finally cuffed Billy on the side of the head. “Damn it, boy, killin’ a man ain’t like killin’ a hog. They fight back, and they don’t die so easy.”
The Red Sticks possessed few firearms; about one in three or one in four was armed with any sort of firearm. Some, like this “chief’s grade” trade musket displayed in the Horseshoe Bend Museum were equal to the best of the weapons used by the militia and Army soldiers. (Author)
Eventually he provided Billy with an old British musket, while his mother sewed the prescribed uniform from cloth purchased with family funds.
3. The period term “Indian” will be used here for simplicity, as opposed to the currently used “Native American.” The tribes most involved in the wars along the southern frontier were the Creek, Cherokee, and Choctaw.
4. Ethnically and linguistically the Muscogee belonged to a much larger group of tribes that included the Apalachee, Hitchitee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Alibamos, Coushatta, and others who played only ancillary roles, or were simply victims of the white settlers’ misplaced wrath.
5. Unfamiliar terms are explained in the glossary on page 2.
6. African slaves were generally considered to be noncombatants but fought on both sides, some with distinction. One anonymous defender of Fort Mims held off the attackers with an axe until overwhelmed. Caesar – belonging to Captain Sam Dale of the Mississippi militia – was widely celebrated as a hero of The Canoe Fight, a river battle in November 1813.