“Among the towns of the Muskogee Creeks who lived to the south of us along the Tallapoosa River, there were people who believed a similar sort of foolishness—just like those of our people who burned their own houses and killed their cats A prophet had risen up among them, too. That prophet also said they had to give up the things that came from the white men. However, that Muskogee prophet went even further. His vision was not one in which the white people would be washed away by a flood. Instead, he spoke of weapons and rivers of blood. He told his people that they had to kill all the white men or push back into the ocean.

“The Upper Muskogee Creeks sent envoys to the Tsalagi, asking us to join them. But just as we had refused Tecumseh’s offer, our council turned them down. War against the Aniyonega would only lead to our own destruction. We had pledged to never again fight the white men and we would never break that pledge.

“Not all of the Muskogee Creeks wanted war, either. Those in the Lower Creek towns knew that fighting against the white men would probably result in their own destruction. They said it was foolish to give up the useful new things that had been brought by the whites. The argument between the Upper and Lower Creeks became heated. Soon a war began between the Upper and Lower Creek nations. Indians were killing one another and many died.

“The Upper Creeks were strong and they were winning that war against their brothers. They felt so powerful that they decided it was time to wipe out the white men who lived nearby. Led by their chief Weatherford, the Upper Creeks, who were now known as the Red Sticks, attacked the white fort on the Tensaw River, overwhelmed and destroyed it. Five hundred white soldiers and settlers died there. The only ones spared were a few people who were of Indian blood and some of the black slaves. It was a great victory for them. But the white men called it a massacre. And so it was in August of the year the white men call 1813 that they joined in the war as the allies of those Lower Creeks and their chief McIntosh.

“That was when my cousin Agili and my friend Turtle Fields came to see me. It was clear from the packs they carried and the muskets they had with them that they were getting ready to set out somewhere.

“‘The Ridge has sent out a call for men,’ Agili said.

“‘Our chief Pathkiller asked him to do this,’ Turtle said.