A Brutal Reckoning
Peter CozzensThe Creek War is one of the most tragic episodes in American history, leading to the greatest loss of Native American life on what is now U.S. soil. What began as a vicious internal conflict among the Creek Indians metastasized like a cancer. The ensuing Creek War of 1813-1814 shattered Native American control of the Deep South & led to the infamous Trail of Tears, in which the government forcibly removed the southeastern Indians from their homeland. The war also gave Andrew Jackson his first combat leadership role, & his newfound popularity after defeating the Creeks would set him on the path to the White House.
In A Brutal Reckoning, Peter Cozzens vividly captures the young Jackson, describing a brilliant but harsh military commander with unbridled ambition, a taste for cruelty, & a fraught sense of honor & duty. Jackson would not have won the war without the help of Native American allies, yet he denied their role & even insisted on their displacement, together with all the Indians of the American South in the Trail of Tears.
A conflict involving not only white Americans & Native Americans, but also the British & the Spanish, the Creek War opened the Deep South to the b, setting the stage for the American Civil War yet to come. No other single Indian conflict had such significant impact on the fate of America—& A Brutal Reckoning is the definitive book on this forgotten chapter in our history.
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PETER COZZENS is the author or editor of 18 acclaimed books on the American Civil War & the Indian Wars of the American West, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Lincoln Prize. In 2002 he was awarded the American Foreign Service Association’s highest honor,…