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Head Chief William Macintosh was the peace chief. He was half Scotch and half Creek, and bore his father's family name. He joined the side of the United States. The war chiefs were Lam-o-chat-tee, or Red Eagle, and Menewa. They, too, were half-breeds. Chief Red Eagle was called William Weatherford, after his white trader father who had married a Creek girl.
Of the Cherokee and Creek scouts, twenty-three had been killed, forty-seven wounded. Chief William Macintosh also had fought bravely, but he had not been harmed. The Red Sticks now agreed to a treaty of peace with the United States; and Chief Menewa, scarred from head to foot, was the hero of his band. "One of the bravest chiefs that ever lived," is written after his name, by white historians.
Already the white settlers had become alarmed at the quarrel between the Macintosh bands and the Menewa bands. When two Indian parties fight, then the people near them suffer by raids. All Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia prepared for defense.
He directed them to leave, as he had come to kill only Chief Macintosh, according to the law. So the white men, and the women and children, left. When Chief Macintosh bolted in flight, he was shot dead. The Georgia people, who desired the Creek land, prepared for war, or to arrest Menewa and his party.
The Horseshoe was rightly named, for a sharp curve of the Tallapoosa River enclosed about one hundred acres of brushy, timbered bluffs and low-land, very thick to the foot. The entrance to the neck was only three hundred yards wide. On the three other sides the river flowed deep. Menewa was the field commander of the Red Sticks, at this place.
That was a terrible fight, at the breast-works. Chief Menewa encouraged his men. The test of the Holy Ground protected by the Great Spirit and the prophets had arrived. The battle was to decide whether the Creek nation or the American nation was to rule in Georgia and Alabama, and the Red Sticks made mighty defense. While they raged, they looked for the cloud in the sky.
On March 24 "Old Mad Jackson," just appointed by President Madison to be major-general in the United States army, set out against "Crazy-war-hunter" Menewa at Tohopeka. The way was difficult, through dense timber, swamps and cane-brakes. Alabama, in these days, had been only thinly settled by white people.
Yes, and even the town built by direction of the prophets and named Holy Ground and protected by magic. By the close of 1813, this Jackson Chula Harjo "Old Mad Jackson," as the Creeks dubbed him had proved to be as tough as his later name, "Old Hickory." But Menewa and Weatherford were tough, too. They and their more than one thousand warriors still hung out.
Chief Menewa was bleeding from a dozen wounds. He made desperate stand, but the cloud had gone, the fire was roaring, Head Prophet Monahoe was down dead, dead; the Great Spirit had smitten him through the mouth with a grape-ball, as if to rebuke him for lying. There was only one prophet left alive. Him, Menewa angrily killed with his own hand; then joined the flight. He plunged into the river.
However, the Choctaws and Chickasaws enlisted with the United States; Chief Macintosh's friendly Creeks did not falter; and speedily the fiery Andy Jackson was marching down from Tennessee, at the head of two thousand picked men, to crush out the men of Menewa and Weatherford. Other columns, from Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, also were on the trail.
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