The Battle of the Holy Ground

23 December 1813 

On this date in 1813...

Approximately 850 militia from Natchez, led by Brigadier General Ferdinand Claiborne, and 150 Choctaws, led by Chief Pushmataha, attacked the Red Stick Creeks at a secret holy site, called the Hickory Ground, in Lowndes County, Alabama. The Creeks lost the “Battle of the Holy Ground” with many warriors and prophets killed. Red Stick Chief William Weatherford (Lume Chathi) survived by jumping his horse off a bluff into the Alabama River. The Americans reported only one soldier killed.

Other Years:

•  1783 - George Washington resigned his commission as commander in chief of the Continental Army and returned home to Mount Vernon, after the disbanding of his army following the Revolutionary War.
• 1788 - Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the seat of the national government. About two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia.
• 1861 - Lord Lyon's of Great Britain demanded that federals release Confederate Commissioners Mason & Slidell to England after they were illegally seized from the H.M.S. Trent.
• 1913 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the Federal Reserve System.
• 1957 - Dan Blocker of De Kalb, Texas made his acting debut on television in the "Restless Gun."
• 1982 - The United States Environmental Protection Agency announced it had identified dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil of Times Beach, Missouri
• 1987 - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ford in 1975, escaped from the Alderson Federal Prison for Women in Western Virginia.
• 1997 - terry nichols was found guilty of manslaughter for his part in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Read: Why Know Southern History?

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