Short stops: Horseshoe Bend National Military Park

The little spit of land on the Tallapoosa River in east-central Alabama might represent the least likely NPS site I have visited. 

When I first spotted Horseshoe Bend on the national park map, I expected a Civil War engagement. That’s typically a good guess across much of the Southeast (some Revolutionary War sites dot the Carolinas. But the Creek Indian War often goes forgotten, although it is part of a much-larger war against Native peoples of the Southeast. 

The battle crushed Creek Indian resistance in Alabama, part of a war few 21st Americans remember. The Creek Indian War in Alabama overlapped with the War of 1812. The battle preceded Major Gen. Andrew Jackson’s fame-making victory at the Battle of New Orleans (two weeks after the end of the War of 1812). 

At Horseshoe Bend, Jackson commanded a joint force of U.S. soldiers and Creek warriors who would help him break the Red Stick Creeks who refused to join with the White settlers and wanted to retain their historic lands. 

A three-mile drive outlines the battle lines, with hills important for how Jackson’s forces overwhelmed the settlement at Horseshoe Bend. Red Stick villages were effective against U.S. incursions because they were hidden deep within Alabama. 

With sympathetic Creeks guiding the U.S. forces, they assaulted previous hidden redoubts deep inside the Alabama wilderness. River crossings by Creek and other Indian forces were key in overwhelming Horseshoe Bend. The engagement felt more like a rout or massacre than an actual battle. The defeat seemed massive in scope, even as scant evidence remained of the battle or the villages that sat along the Tallapoosa. 

The ultimate battle in the Creek War secured more lands in Alabama for the fledgling U.S. Creek opposition to white settlement was essentially broken. It was also a sign of events to come. Despite the help of the Creeks in securing victory, President Andrew Jackson would later lead the push to remove his former allies from these lands. 

On that day in 1814, they helped Jackson achieve victory. At a later date, the Creeks stood in the way of full white settlement of Alabama, same as the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and other southeastern tribes. All were swept onto the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma, marched into Indian Territory across the Arkansas River and left under watch of the garrison at Fort Smith. 

I tried giving Horseshoe Bend an extra moment. It did lie in the south Appalachian foothills, far from Alabama's metropolitan areas. I waited for a herd of deer, a sign of any life to cross the trails or Horseshoe Bend or the gurgling rapids of the Tallapoosa. Even birdsong was light this morning. I had seen most of what the small battle site offered, and I still had to cross Atlanta.