there were some sightings in the area by african slaves and they reported this, but were not believed for some reason. one was being whipped for having spread false rumors. the attack was a surprise. the garrison was not a formal military unit. and so very badly lead. the fort was badly built. the gun loopholes, which should have been five feet above the ground, were at three-foot levels. they were level with the attacking force, who took possession of the loopholes. the battle went on for a long time. there were maybe 700 red sticks in the attacking force and several hundred fighting inside among the many civilians inside the fort. sometime around the afternoon, the battle had stalemated. the red sticks withdrew. they set fire to a good portion of the southern part of the fort. the fire spread and at that point, defense was impossible. the few remaining defenders tried to escape. about 25 made it out of the fort. the battle need all of the papers in the country. -- immediately made all the papers. it was considered a huge disaster of american military might and it took a while for the local armies to reconstitute themselves. the volunteers were devastated by this. eventually they organized an army to invade the creek nation. the georgians organized a couple of different attacks from the east and then the tennessee troops, under several generals, andrew jackson most famously, invaded from the north. this was one of the major outcomes of the battle, this introduction of andrew jackson. his success throughout the creek war, they made him famous throughout the country and convinced of the leadership in washington he could actually fight and win. so he was given command of the army in new orleans and defeated the british there in 1815. andrew jackson is a controversial figure for many reasons. he did all sorts of new sorts of policies in all aspects of government. one outcome of his experiences during the creek war was his determination to see indian removal finally occur in the eastern united states. a lot of people like george washington had tried to formulate a policy of assimilation where indians could become americans, in their sense of the word, and stay where they were located. the american indians had populations in the tens of thousands. the american government was under pressure by settlers to take the land one way or another. so jackson was excited when he heard the news of fort mims and saw this as an opportunity to take land from the creek's and negotiated the treaty of fort jackson. at the end of the war, that took 21,000,000 acres from the creek nation. 20 years later when he became president, he was able to push through the removal act of 1830 that led to forced removal of indians from the east and the north, the ohio country. the attack itself launched the invasion of the creek nation and the confiscation of all this land, which after the war was opened up for settlement. alabama and southern georgia would not have been settled if not for this war. there was a thing called alabama fever, this land rush in the years following the war. that was the most immediate impact. and of course the removal act, this is sense of betrayal the americans felt at this sneak attack. the way they viewed it, there was a massacre. they felt betrayed because in previous years, people had tried their best to assimilate creeks and this was a clear response they did not want to become americans. that gave a lot of force for the removal proponents to move indians out of this area. the conquering spirit was used by the federal agent to the southern indians. when he first got wind of the red sticks movement, which was largely religious and also militaristic, he said the red sticks were possessed of a conquering spirit by the master of breath, the great spirit figure. and so i thought that was appropriate for that perspective and also when the americans are attacked at fort mims, their response is to respond in kind. and i thought that captured the essence of what was going on. initially i was part of a team of archaeologists who was contracted by the alabama could historical commission to look at the archaeology and a lot of digging at the site at fort mims. we had thousands of artifacts and no reports to speak of. we spent about a year in 2003, 2004 analyzing the collection. it was in the process of doing that i began to read up on the history and see that there were a lot of old historical ideas that needed to be re-examined. a lot more evidence available than back in the 1890's when the last major work had been done. the archaeology led me to the history. for people who read "a conquering spirit" see different perspective. the creek perspective has been underrepresented and indian perspectives in general although that is clearly changing now. i hope people try to understand the redstick view. they were not evil incarnate as they were portrayed in the era by the american press. they had all kinds of legitimate grievances and the outcome is tragic from all perspectives. it is a very instructive period. i viewed ft. mims as similar to other stories. often fiction writers will take some kind of vessel like the titanic or a rowboat or a lifeboat, the space station, some kind of contained entity in which people interact and kind of show their true selves. i thought that is what was happening. we see the cruelty of the commander here, daniel beasley who had been a sheriff in the natchez area, whipping the slaves who were talking about the approaches of the redstick creeks. all the human stories that go on and the most fascinating to me and trying to delve into the genealogy of these individuals showed they were closely related . these people were fighting on opposite sides but they all knew each other. they would yell insults back and forth and it was a very personal war played out here on a small scale. it is like the american civil war crunched down into a little tiny event in many ways. you see the same kinds of stories as you would see in a bigger picture like the american civil war. >> today's look at the people, places, and events is part of c-span's cities tour. we travel across the country, highlighting the literary life and history of each city we visit. see more at our website, www.c-span.org. click on the series have, then click on -- tab, then click on c-span cities tour. c-span's american history tour takes you now to pictograph cave, state park, outside billings, montana. the park's manager talks about pictographs left behind by native americans who lived in the area 9000 years ago. >> this is located five miles south of billings, montana. this is the home of some of the first people ever in the northern plains. the people that lived here really were dependent completely on the natural environment, the place around them. they traveled small distances just following the game. this place offered them shelter, food, water, medicine, and a sense of security. this is pictograph cave itself. it is important in a place like this to let your eyes adjust to this because you're looking at charcoal drawings that are over 1000 years old from 20 feet back. if you sit here and watch, eventually some of these images will kind of emerge. at one point, the ceiling was painted. there were boulders in front of the cave that were painted. this place really was like the sistine chapel. there was images all over it. the first thing that most people see when they come here are the red pigments because they tend to be the more recent. and they are more vibrant. if you look up here, this first thing we're looking at is what we call a biographic scene which means it tells a story. if you miss a part of the image you will miss a piece of the story. in this instance we have seven flintlock rifles all being fired. then there is a number of dash marks below and this is the same pigment, the same diameter. part of the same image. this is a beaver, a dead beaver. it is -- you can see its big tail and there is two webbed feet and a dot on it because it has been killed. there is a lightning bolt coming out of its mouth. that is its soul leaving its body. its energy. this is a group of fur trappers that were ambushed right near here and this was in 1823. seven of them were killed in that ambush. 23 of them got away. seven of these for trappers were killed and they took all their pelts. we do not know for sure if that is what this illustrates but it is interesting to note that when they built main street in billings, they blew up this big rock and this rock was called indian rock because it had some of the same petroglyphs or carvings of the images that you see here. when they blew up this rock behind it they found seven skulls which may be the seven people that were killed in that ambush in 1823. that's where the turtle used to sit. that image fell and is now in the visitor center.