Battle of New Orleans.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Fort Mims in Alabama-- Part 3: Jackson Retaliates and the DAR

From the July/August DAR American Spirit Magazine.

Colonel Andrew Jackson mobilized three state militias to attack the Red Sticks. At the 1814 Battle of Horseshoe Bend, he defeated them, ending the Creek War. This defeat eventually led to the banishment of several Indian tribes to the West on the infamous Trail of Tears.

The modern history of Fort Mims has a lot to do with the Fort Mims DAR chapter of Stockton, Alabama, founded in 1949. Organizing Regent June Whiting Slaughter and her husband Carl were asked by the Alabama Parks and Conservation Department to help clearing brush off land adjacent to their north Baldwin County property where they had been finding arrowheads and pieces of pottery. Charred wood was found that determined the fort's original site.

In the mid-1980s the first battle reenactment was held and this continues. Gregory Waselkov at the University of South Alabama has started a dig at the fort and written a book A Conquering Spirit: Fort Mims and the Redstick War of 1813-1814. Artifacts from the fort will be on display during the anniversary weekend.

We'll probably be driving to Alabama if NIU plays in the Go-Daddy Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, in January. This could be a stop on the way.

--Brock-Perry

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