After two weeks of fighting, General Edward Pakenham and his polished British veterans had gotten nowhere against General Andrew Jackson’s roughhewn American army. Unable to bear the shame of what they might say back in London if he retreated, General Pakenham decided to risk it all on one final assault. Pakenham ordered Colonel William Thornton to cross to the west side of the Mississippi to turn Jackson's flank, while another British column attacked the main line. Thornton’s role was key to the plan’s success, but due to countless issues, Thornton did not reach his destination until the outcome of the main battle had already been decided. Shortly after midnight on January 8, 1815, General John Keane and General Samuel Gibbs moved their divisions quietly forward to within several hundred yards of the American position. As morning dawned, nothing was heard from Thronton across the river. At this point, General Pakenham should have called off the attack and waited for another day, but he felt compelled to take his chances and gave the order to advance.

The British advance guard of 1,800 men led by General John Keane arrived undetected onto the Villere plantation the morning of December 23, 1814, a mere twelve miles from New Orleans. General Andrew Jackson, the American commander, was notified later that morning and his fighting blood was instantly up; two hours later, Jackson was on the road at the head of 2,000 men and an artillery battery of six-pounders. Jackson attacked the unsuspecting British encampment that night, with the fight descending into brutal hand-to-hand combat. Five days later, General Keane’s Redcoats attacked the American center, while General Samuel Gibbs led a detachment against the American left.

In November 1814, Admiral Alexander Cochrane, General Edward Pakenham, and a British army of 7,000 veterans sailed from Jamaica for New Orleans. Major General Andrew Jackson, commander of American forces, was convinced any attack on New Orleans must come through Mobile and decided to strengthen the defenses of Fort Bowyer, which guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay. When British ground forces attacked the fort on September 15, the Americans repulsed the attack and forced Nichols to retire to Pensacola. Jackson then decided to take the fight to the British and captured Pensacola, a Spanish possession, on November 7. Jackson finally left for New Orleans and arrived on December 2 to find a city ill-prepared to withstand an assault.

In 1812, the Creek, or Muskogee, Indians occupied much of today’s Alabama and southwest Georgia and enjoyed good relations with the United States. Its population was estimated at 20,000, a quarter of which were fighting age warriors. In early 1813, a civil war erupted between the Upper and Lower towns with warriors from the Upper towns taking up the “red stick,” or war club, against American settlers leading to the massacre of Fort Mims, while those in the Lower towns maintained their allegiance to the federal government. After months of fighting, led by General Andrew Jackson, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend was a crushing defeat that both avenged the massacre at Fort Mims and marked the end of Creek resistance. Jackson forced the remaining Creeks, many of whom had sided with the Americans during the war, to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which appropriated to the federal government most of the Creek nation, over 23 million acres.

Ever since the Treaty of Paris in 1783 ended the American Revolution, Americans had wanted to add Spanish Florida to the United States to expand the country and gain easy access to the Gulf. When war was declared on Great Britain in 1812, President James Madison decided to end the controversy and simply seize all of Florida. In January 1813, General Andrew Jackson sent his infantry down the Cumberland River from Nashville on flatboats and dispatched Colonel John Coffee and a troop of cavalry by land to Natchez, the rendezvous point of the army. But the Senate, led by Senator Samuel Smith, refused to authorize the conquest, and Jackson was ordered to dismiss his army. Jackson was disappointed that his chance for martial glory was over, but another opportunity arose a few months later when a band of Creek Indians went on the warpath.