Canoe Fight

The Canoe Fight was a famous engagement fought on November 12, 1813, as part of the Creek War. It occurred near the mouth of Randons Creek on the Alabama River, between modern Clarke and Monroe counties. During an expedition up the Alabama, American militia in two war-canoes captured a Creek war-canoe. Though little more than a skirmish, the action became famous for involving frontiersman Captain Samuel Dale, who commanded the expedition. Samuel Dale, Jeremiah Austill, and James Smith become frontier heroes in this Creek War episode on the Alabama River known as The Canoe Fight. From their canoe, paddled by a black man named Caesar, the three Americans engaged a large canoe carrying nine Creek warriors. As militiamen and Indians watched from opposite sides of the river, Dale, Austill, and Smith killed eight warriors in hand-to-hand combat, and fatally wounded another.