General Nathaniel Taylor-- Part 2: A Question of Guns

As they marched southward, the men did a lot of road building and guarding wagons.

Many were stationed at Camp Mandeville near Mobile in February 1814, where they encountered much disease.  Captain Joseph Scott's 104-man company had 31 listed as sick in their final muster.

From the East Tennessee Historical Society.

From 1800 to 1814, Nathaniel Taylor became quite a rich and successful businessman and even had iron forges.

In 1814-1815, after the defeat of the Creek Indians, the U.S. Secretary of War directed a call for 2,500 Tennessee militia to march south and man forts in the recently captured territory.  Taylor's brigade was part of this.  Evidently, there was an acute lack of weapons and a bit of a confrontation along the way with the commander of a regular U.S. Army regiment about his having surplus guns.

On November 9, at Fort Jackson, half of Taylor's troops were without guns.

Brock-Perry

General Nathaniel Taylor-- Part 1: Brig. Gen. Tennessee Militia

In the last post I wrote about the historic 200-year-old home in Elizabethton, Tennessee, Sabine Hill, which was built by the general's widow opening for the public back in November.  Gen. Taylor was mentioned as participating in the defense of Mobile, Alabama, during the War of 1812.

Ancestry says he was born in 1772 and passed away in 1816 in Carter, Tennessee.  Carter is the county Elizabethton is located in.

Find-A-Grave says he was a brigadier general in the War of 1812 and was born February 4, 1771.

Part of his brigade of drafted Tennessee militia were mustered in at Knoxville and marched to Mobile via Camp Ross (present-day Chattanooga), Fort Jackson, Fort Claiborne and Fort Montgomery.

--Brock-Perry

Tennessee in the War of 1812-- Part 4: Jackson's Victory and Treaty Were Very Rewarding to Him

Throughout the Creek War, the Indians were outmanned, inadequately armed, and lacking in military discipline.  In fact, Jackson's greatest threat came not from the Creeks, but from supply shortages and desertions by his troops dissatisfied with their enlistment terms.  I have been writing about the 2nd Regiment East Tennessee Volunteer Militia who were called into service to replace troops lost in Jackson's 1813 mutiny.

Nevertheless, the victories won during the Creek War were acclaimed enthusiastically by a nation experiencing military setbacks elsewhere.  As a reward for his efforts, Andrew Jackson was commissioned a major general in the United States Regular Army.

His treaty with the Creeks at Fort Jackson in August 1814 forced the tribe to forfeit nearly two-thirds of their land (about 23 million acres), which soon filled with white settlers.

--Brock-Perry