Existing comment:
Futile Escape
Horseshoe Bend National Military Park
"I ordered [Lt. Jesse] Bean to take possession of the Island below, with forty men, to prevent the enemy's taking refuge there...as many of the enemy did attempt their escape...but not one were landed-they were sunk by [Lt.] Beans command ere they reached the bank."
-- Gen. John Coffee, Tennessee Militia
Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson sent Gen. John Coffee and 1,300 men to surround Horseshoe Bend here on the banks of the Tallapoosa River. Jackson hoped Coffee's 700 Tennessee mounted riflemen and 600 Cherokee and Lower Creek warriors could close off all avenues of escape for the Red Sticks.
Coffee ordered Lt. Jesse Bean and 40 mounted riflemen to wait on what is now called Bean's Island, in front of you. As Jackson's army attacked the Red Sticks, Bean's men aimed their rifles across the river, shooting any Red Stick attempting to swim to safety through the cold waters of the Tallapoosa.
"[The] Tallapoosa might truly be called a River of blood for the water was so stained that at 10 O'clock at night it was very perceptibly bloody so much that it could not be used."
-- Lt. Alexander McCulloch, Tennessee Militia |