Battle of Calebee Creek

Background

The spark that set this campaign in motion was the Red Stick assault on Fort Mims, roughly 30 miles north of Mobile, in August 1813. In its wake, Georgia, Tennessee, and the Mississippi Territory scrambled to raise soldiers to crush what they saw as a Red Stick uprising. This army took shape as a single company of artillery, one dragoon squadron, a battalion of riflemen, and a pair of infantry regiments. John Floyd, given fresh command over these men, stated plainly that his intent was not speed but steady, unstoppable advance, driving a lasting foothold into Creek lands. Yet his plans were badly undercut by his own failure to secure adequate provisions from state officials, leaving his men poorly fed.

Ultimately he launched two separate pushes into Creek territory in what is now eastern Alabama. The first culminated in the fight at Autossee that November, where his 900 soldiers cut down some 200 Creek warriors and left the town in ashes. Floyd himself took a serious wound to the knee in the engagement, and his forces spent the next two months recovering at Fort Mitchell. Once ready again, he led 1,700 militiamen together with allied Creek fighters some 40 miles westward, aiming to establish supply posts at Forts Hull and Bainbridge along the Federal Road.

Around this same period, Andrew Jackson set out with a force just above 400, drawing on Lower Creek and Cherokee allies as well, heading toward the Creek settlement of Emuckfaw. His purpose was to draw attention away from Floyd's movements. But his troops were largely inexperienced militia fresh to service, and in the clashes at Emuckfaw and Enotachopo Creek, Jackson's men killed only about 50 Creek warriors while absorbing losses of their own severe enough to force a withdrawal. Even so, Jackson insisted afterward that his campaign had nonetheless served to support Floyd's efforts.

Battle

Aware that Floyd's forces were drawing near, Paddy Walsh and William Weatherford, also called Red Eagle, assembled 1,800 Creek warriors at a council to plan their defense. The two leaders, however, found themselves at odds over strategy. Weatherford favored letting Floyd's troops cross the Calabee before striking, hoping to exploit the element of surprise by targeting the officers' tents directly, but the other chief dismissed this approach as too dangerous. As a result, it was Walsh who took charge of the assault alone, aiming to overwhelm the sentries, inflict maximum casualties, and pull back once daylight arrived.

Before sunrise on January 27, 1814, some 1,300 Creek warriors managed to slip past the perimeter campfires undetected. Having hidden in the swampland since half past five that morning, they launched their assault on Floyd's militia from three directions at once. As the fighting intensified and left many combatants stripped of weapons or ammunition, one account describes artilleryman Ezekiel M. Attaway, serving under Jett Thomas, seizing the traversing handspike from his gun's carriage and calling out to his fellow soldiers not to abandon the weapon, urging them instead to grab whatever arms they could find and hold their ground to the very end. With their crucial field pieces nearly overrun, the gun crews managed to turn back the advancing Creek fighters through several rounds of grapeshot. This decisive action preserved the artillery, and Timpoochee Barnard's intervention likewise saved a detachment under Captain John H. Broadnax that had become separated from the main body of troops. Following this, and after a week's lull in fighting, Floyd held his ground until dawn broke, at which point he gave the order for a bayonet countercharge.