He was told that the campaign had failed and that the struggle was useless.

To this he replied that he would perish first and that energy and decision, together with the fresh troops promised him, would solve the crisis.
Months passed, and the militia whose enlistments had expired went home, while the other broke out in renewed and more serious mutinies.

The few regulars sent to Jackson he used as police to keep the militia in order.
The court-martialing and shooting of a private had a beneficial effect.
With this disgruntled, unreliable, weary force, Jackson came, at length, to a great war camp of the Creek Indians at a loop of the Tallapoosa River called Horseshoe Bend.

Here some ten hundred picked warriors had built defensive works which were worthy of the talent of a trained engineer.

They also had as effective firearms as the white troops who assaulted the stronghold.