White posts mark the location of the Red Stick barricade at Stop 2 on the Horseshoe Bend National Military Park tour

See the Horseshoe Bend Battlefield Tour home page for a tour map.

While the position of the Red Stick barricade is visible from the Battlefield Overlook, you can get a much closer look at the location on Stop 2 of the Horseshoe Bend National Military Park Tour. The barricade was built of logs and stretched all the way across the mouth of the peninsula from the east to the west banks of the Tallapoosa River. It was as high as eight feet in places and was lined with port holes through which the Indians with rifles could fire upon the charging American soldiers. There was no way to approach the wall without being exposed to bullets.

In an attempt to lessen the effectiveness of the wall, Andrew Jackson fired a 3- and 6-pounder cannon at the barricade for two hours, but with little effect (pounder refers to the size of the cannon ball fired). At 12:30 PM, after noticing that the Red Sticks were being attacked from the rear by the men of Colonel John Coffee, Jackson ordered his men to charge the barricade, and although it was well built and strategically placed, the superior number of Americans, a 2-1 ratio, allowed the soldiers to quickly overrun it.

There are a number of exhibits at Stop 2. The Jackson Trace stone marks the general location of where Jackson set up his command post and ordered the bombardment of the barricade prior to the full attack.