Gilbert - Frontier Militiaman in the War of 1812

There was a time when I had a choice. I have none, now. Even hope is ended. Once I could animate my warriors, but I cannot animate the dead. William Weatherford (Red Eagle) addressing Andrew Jackson, 1814

State militias conducted most of the military campaigns along the southwestern frontier of the United States between 1813 and 1815. Yet despite their widespread use, few military units have been the subject of so much misconception and outright fantasy. Indeed, this entire theater of war remains one of the least known in American history, although the events of this brief period decided the fate of the new nation.

Many historians treat the southwestern frontier campaigns as a sideshow to the larger War of 1812, yet they had far different stakes. The War of 1812 was largely a maritime war waged to control the eastern seaboard of North America and to determine Americas access to global trade. Secondary land campaigns defined the boundary between the United States and Britains remaining North American colony, Canada.

At stake in the southwestern frontier was the issue of whether the United States could absorb the vast Louisiana Purchase to become a major nation. At the time, Americas western boundary stretched from the Great Lakes to the old French ports of Mobile and New Orleans, but geographic and human obstacles blocked westward expansion.

The grasslands of the Great Plains were then called The Great American Desert, a seemingly empty plain with uncertain water supplies. Commerce and settlement would be funneled along river systems that converged at New Orleans and a secondary port at Mobile. Spain controlled what is now the state of Florida, further blocking expansion.

The human obstacle was the Muscogee, or Creek, Nation in what is now Georgia and Alabama. Commerce and intermarriage had mingled white and Creek cultures, but the Creeks maintained a formidable military reputation from the days when they raided as far north as the Great Lakes.

A Scene On The Frontier As Practiced By The Humane British and Their Worthy Allies! British support for warlike tribes along the western and southern frontiers inflamed public opinion, as evidenced by handbills and newspaper editorials. This example shows a British officer offering two Shawnee a reward from their King and Master. (Library of Congress)

The Creeks remained largely neutral in white affairs, playing the colonial powers against each other until the Revolutionary War (177683). Alexander McGillivray (c.175093), raised and educated in white society, led the Creeks to establish a central council that replaced the loose alliance of clans. Under McGillivray affluent Creeks were assimilated into the white culture, living in established towns and villages, farming, and raising livestock.

Other Creeks strove to maintain a traditional way of life, and civil war between the two factions grew into a conflict with the white settlers. The Creek War, or Red Stick War of 181314, destroyed the Creek Nation and opened vast areas to white settlement. It established the reputations of some of the towering figures of American history, including Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, and Davy Crockett; and was largely fought by a mixture of various militia forces supplemented by regular troops.

Jackson would go on to decisively defeat the might of the British Army using his part time army of militiamen at the battle of New Orleans in 1815, and as President he set the nation on a course of relentless expansion. But it all began with a little-known war in Alabama.

We will follow two fictional characters, Billy McCullough and the Deacon, through the two wars against the Creeks and the British as the militiamen of the southwestern frontier forged a formidable fighting reputation against all expectations. The minor character Joshua is also fictional. Others characters mentioned by name are actual persons, though their exact words are fictional. The reader should be aware that in fact militia units consisted of short-service volunteers, and virtually no one except a few very senior officers served in all the campaigns described here.

The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of 828,000 square miles of French territory, Louisiana, in 1803. It encompassed portions of 15 current US states and two Canadian provinces.

MISSISSIPPI TERRITORY 1812
The Mississippi Territory included the present stares of Alabama and Mississippi, and the Creek Nation lay generally east of the Tombigbee River, extending into western Georgia, and south into Spanish Florida. Two major routes were opened in an attempt to encourage settlement, the Natchez Trace (primarily a horse path) and the Federal Road, a wagon and mail route. The Federal Road in particular encouraged white settlement on Creek lands.