New Battle of Ekanachattee page now online!

Continuing the expansion of my TwoEggFla.com website, I've added a new page on the Battle of Ekanachatte.

This little known battle took place on March 13, 1818, at what is now Neal's Landing Park in the northeastern corner of Jackson County. The park is located where State Highway 2 intersects the Chattahoochee River and the Georgia line.

For more than 50 years prior to the battle, this had been the site of the Lower Creek village of Ekanachatte ("Red Ground"). The warriors of this town had fought on the side of the British during the American Revolution, taking part in numerous battles and skirmishes in northeastern Florida and Georgia. A British force even camped here briefly in 1778. The town also later sided with the adventurer and pirate William Augustus Bowles during his Florida intrigues in the 1780s and 1790s.

By the time of the Creek War of 1813-1814, Ekanchatte was under the leadership of a chief known by his title of Econchattimico ("Red Ground King"). When U.S. forces overran the Creek villages of central Alabama, he welcomed refugees into his town and did his best to feed and house them. As a result, the village grew to become one of the largest in the Florida/Alabama/Georgia borderlands.

In 1817, when U.S. troops attacked the Lower Creek village of Fowltown in what is now Decatur County, Georgia, Econchattimico joined other Creek and Seminole chiefs across the region in launching what became known as the First Seminole War. His warriors took part in the Battle of Ocheesee on December 15-20, 1817, but returned to their village as a brutal winter settled across the region. A volcanic eruption in Indonesia so impacted the climate of the world that by March of 1818, heavy snow was falling in Jackson County and the creeks and ponds were choked with ice.

Brigadier General William McIntosh, the commander of 1,500 Creek warriors allied with the United States against their own people, took advantage of the severe weather to march south from Fort Mitchell, Alabama. His target was Ekanachatte and on the morning of March 13, 1818, he surprised the village with a devastating attack. When the smoke of the battle cleared, 20 of the town's warriors lay dead and 30 others, along with 130 women and children, had been taken prisoner.

To visit the new page and learn more about the Battle of Ekanachatte, please go to www.twoeggfla.com/ekanachattebattle. You can also read a full account in The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years.