After the Chickamauga warriors lost to General Mad Wayne on the Northern frontier in 1791 under Chief Little Turtle, General Wayne’s army was pushing hard and we had many wounded , taking one loss after another so the Chickamauga warriors moved to their strong hold in Northern Alabama making raids into Georgia, Tennessee, and in Alabama. By early 1813 part of the warriors had moved from Indian Creek village to aid Chief Red Eagle.

      Brigadier General Claiborne of the Mississippi Militia was in charge of the military in the region. He sent Major Daniel Beasley and about 170 men to defend Fort Mims. Major Beasley had no military wartime and was just a lawyer, but a close personal friend of General Claiborne in February 1813. General Claiborne ordered two new blockhouses to be built, but Major Beasley was slow to strengthen Fort Mims defenses. Major Beasley sent about 50 of his men to Mount Vernon on the Mobile River which was a few miles west of the fort.

    About August 24, 1813 General Claiborne led somewhere around 85 men to reinforce Fort Easley, the Red Sticks knowing the weakness of Fort Mims from their scouts, having more than 1000 warriors of Creek, Chickamauga, Choctaw and Chickasaw and Shawnee had Red Eagle planning the attack. On August 29, 1813 Red Eagle had hidden their main force in the woods just over the hill from the unsuspecting Fort Mims soldiers. The soldiers and settlers were enjoying the morning, with no idea what was going on in the tree just over the hill, all patrols reported that no Indian activity could be found.

     On August 29, 1813 the warriors had move to within less than few hundred feet of the unsuspecting Fort, and with night time on them Red Eagle and his warriors moved up to the wall of the Fort. As Red Eagle looked through the firing ports, he found that the sentries were sleeping and never heard the warriors coming.

     On the morning of August 30, 1830 the warriors were watching and waiting, the main gate on the east side of the Fort could not be closed because there was a dirt bank in front of it and the troops had not tried to close the gate. About mid morning the sound to call the troops to eat was also the call for the attack to start as 1,000 Red Stick and Chickamauga Warriors ran across the open field. Many that were up next to the wall of the Fort ran in the open gate. The warriors next to the wall used the firing ports to shoot into the fort and we took the unoccupied blockhouse. Major Beasley, with his sword in his hand, was fighting to try to close the block gate but was killed in the initial onslaught. Next in command was Bailey a halfbreed who took command using riflemen to try to hold off the attackers from the firing ports. The militiamen were pushed back to the second defenses but were overwhelmed by the numbers of warriors rushing into the Fort.

    Even with all the manpower of the Red Sticks and Chickamauga most of who were armed only with bows and Arrows, Tomahawks and Knives took heavy losses. The warriors set fire to most of the fort's buildings and many settlers with women and children were burned alive. Also, the power magazine in one cabin exploded.

    By mid afternoon the battle was far from being over and some of the warriors wished to quit the fight, but as the afternoon went on there were only about 30 of the people of the fort still living. There was over 500 that died inside the fort, when the warriors called the fight off.

    The Creek and Chickamauga warriors believed a rumor that the British in Pensacola were offering 5 dollars for the white peoples scalp. There was less than 200 warriors killed in the battle.

    The news of the massacre at Fort Mims spread and by October 4 , 1813 about 1300 Tennessee Volunteer troops under the command of Major General Andrew Jackson had moved into Northern Alabama. After a series of battles, General Jackson’s army attacked some of the Creek and Chickamauga forces on March 27, 1814 at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa river in eastern Alabama just north of where the Indian Creek Village was.. The war went on.

Wado

Principal Chief James Billy Chance

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