John Coffee

John R. Coffee (June 2, 1772 – July 7, 1833) was an American planter, merchant, land speculator, surveyor, and state militia brigadier general in Tennessee who became a close political and military associate of Andrew Jackson. He commanded troops under Jackson during the Creek War of 1813–14 and at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, and later served as a federal commissioner in the negotiation of removal treaties with Native American nations in the Southeast.

Coffee was born on June 2, 1772, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, the son of Joshua Coffee (January 26, 1745 – September 8, 1797) and Elizabeth Graves (January 28, 1742 – December 13, 1804), both of English descent. His paternal immigrant ancestor, also named Joshua Coffee, had been released from the Old Bailey in London and transported in 1730 as an indentured servant to Virginia, where he worked in the tobacco fields for fourteen years before gaining his freedom in 1744. That earlier Joshua Coffee later served as a captain in the colonial militia. John R. Coffee came of age in the post-Revolutionary South, part of a family that was rising from indentured origins into the planter and mercantile class, and he eventually moved west into the Tennessee country as it opened to American settlement.

By the turn of the nineteenth century, Coffee had established himself in Tennessee as a merchant, land speculator, and surveyor. He entered into a merchandising partnership with Andrew Jackson, who was then an ambitious lawyer, planter, and militia officer. Coffee was widely regarded as the most even-tempered and least selfish of Jackson’s lifelong friends, and contemporaries described him as a big, awkward man, careless of dress and slow of speech, yet kindly, tactful, and wise. His business activities extended into the broader Mississippi Valley economy; in 1800, for example, he traded a 14-year-old enslaved girl named Susana for 175 pecks of salt in Ste. Genevieve, in what is now Missouri, reflecting his participation in the slave-based commercial system of the frontier. In early 1806, Coffee defended Jackson’s honor by challenging Nathaniel A. McNairy to a duel for publishing derogatory statements about Jackson. The duel took place on March 1, 1806, just over the Tennessee line in Kentucky. McNairy unintentionally fired before the agreed signal, wounding Coffee in the thigh. He then offered to lay down his pistol and allow Coffee an extra shot, but the matter was settled without further bloodshed. The pistols used in this encounter were later employed in the famous Jackson–Dickinson duel of May 30, 1806.

Coffee’s personal and business ties to Jackson were further cemented by his marriage. On October 3, 1809, he married Mary Donelson, daughter of Captain John Donelson III and Mary Purnell. Mary Donelson was a niece of Rachel Donelson Jackson, who had married Andrew Jackson in 1794 after the dissolution of her first marriage to Lewis Robards. Before Coffee’s marriage, Jackson sold his interest in their joint merchandising business to Coffee, taking promissory notes for the sale. As a wedding present, Jackson forgave the debt by returning the notes to Coffee and his bride. During these years Coffee continued to build his fortune through surveying and land speculation, activities that would later give him both wealth and influence in the rapidly developing Southwest.

At the outset of the War of 1812, Coffee emerged as a key militia organizer and field commander. He raised the 2nd Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Riflemen, composed mostly of Tennessee militiamen with a smaller contingent from what would become Alabama. In December 1812, responding to a call by Governor Willie Blount of Tennessee on behalf of General James Wilkinson and the U.S. Secretary of War, Coffee’s regiment joined Jackson’s force for an expedition to the lower Mississippi. In January 1813, under Jackson’s overall command, Coffee led about 600 mounted men along the Natchez Trace to Natchez in the Mississippi Territory, arriving ahead of the infantry and other troops who traveled by flatboat on the rivers. After the forces reunited in Natchez, the federal government ordered Jackson’s troops disbanded, and Coffee returned with them to Nashville, where they arrived on May 18, 1813. On September 4, 1813, he was involved in the violent confrontation in Nashville between Andrew Jackson and the Benton brothers; during the melee, Coffee knocked Thomas Benton down a flight of stairs after Benton failed to strike Jackson, who was grappling with Jesse Benton Jr.

With the outbreak of the Creek War, a theater of the broader War of 1812, Coffee’s mounted regiment was combined in October 1813 with Colonel Cannon’s Mounted Regiment and the 1st Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Gunmen to form a brigade of mounted infantry. Coffee was promoted to brigadier general of Tennessee militia and placed in command. On October 11, 1813, Jackson sent him to raid Black Warrior’s Town, a Muscogee settlement near present-day Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Coffee found the village abandoned, seized about 300 bushels of corn, burned the town, and then withdrew to rejoin Jackson’s main force. Jackson subsequently chose Coffee as his advance commander in the Creek campaign, where he led a brigade composed largely of state militia and allied Native American warriors. At the Battle of Tallushatchee, Coffee set out with roughly 900 mounted men, including Tennessee mounted gunmen, and surrounded the Red Stick town. A small detachment under Captain Hammond rode into view and opened fire, drawing the Red Stick warriors—armed mainly with bows and clubs—out of their defensive positions. Feigning retreat, Hammond’s men lured the warriors into the open, where Coffee’s encircling troops poured in heavy fire and closed in. The Red Sticks suffered 186 killed, and Coffee’s force took numerous prisoners, including women and children; American losses were reported as 5 killed and 41 wounded, and Coffee withdrew to Fort Strother.

Coffee also played a prominent role in the Battle of Talladega, where Jackson marched with about 1,200 infantry and 800 cavalry to relieve a friendly, pro-American Creek town besieged by a large Red Stick force. Jackson deployed his light infantry militia on one flank, light infantry volunteers on the other, and placed mounted troops on the outer wings. He ordered three companies of mounted men under Colonel William Carroll to feint a charge and then retreat. When the Red Sticks pursued, they were caught in a crossfire from the surrounding American forces. Although some 700 Red Stick warriors escaped through a gap in the American lines, the attackers suffered heavy casualties—299 killed and 110 wounded—while Jackson’s command lost 14 killed and 81 wounded before withdrawing again to Fort Strother. In early 1814, Coffee was seriously wounded during the twin engagements of Emuckfaw and Enotachopo Creek. On January 22, 1814, Jackson’s army, encamped about twelve miles from Emuckfaw, was attacked at dawn by a strong Red Stick force. After repulsing the assault, Jackson sent Coffee with about 400 men to burn the enemy camp. Finding the position too strong, Coffee declined to attack and returned to the main force, which was soon attacked again. While leading a small party in an attempt to turn the Red Stick flank, Coffee was badly wounded. The Creeks were eventually driven off with 54 killed, but Jackson was compelled to retreat toward Fort Strother. During the difficult withdrawal, including the hazardous crossing of Enotachopo Creek on January 24, 1814, the Americans again beat off a Red Stick attack. Jackson’s combined losses in the two actions were 24 killed and 71 wounded, while Creek casualties were reported as 54 killed with an unknown number wounded.

Coffee recovered sufficiently to take part in the climactic Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814, where Jackson sought to crush the remaining Red Stick resistance. Jackson advanced with approximately 2,000 American infantry, 700 cavalry, some artillery, and about 500 Cherokee and Lower Creek allies against roughly 1,000 Red Stick warriors entrenched on a peninsula formed by a bend in the Tallapoosa River. The Red Sticks had constructed a strong log breastwork across the narrow neck of the peninsula. Jackson assigned Coffee and his mounted men, together with Native allies, to cross the river and cut off any escape from the rear. While American artillery made only limited impression on the breastworks, Coffee’s force successfully moved into position behind the Red Stick encampment and opened heavy fire from the opposite bank. This compelled the Red Sticks to divert warriors from the front to counter Coffee’s attack, weakening their defenses at the breastwork. Jackson’s militia and regulars then stormed the fortifications, engaging in close-quarters fighting through the loopholes and over the barricades. As the American and allied forces overran the position, many Red Stick warriors attempted to flee across the river, where they were shot down by Coffee’s mounted riflemen and allied Indians on the far bank. After the battle, American forces counted 557 Red Stick dead on the field, and an estimated 300 more were believed to have drowned in the river. Approximately 300 women and an unknown number of children were taken and marched toward Fort Talladega, where many were enslaved by Cherokee and Creek allies of the United States. Overall, the Creek warriors lost about 800 killed and 206 wounded, while Jackson’s American troops suffered 47 killed and 159 wounded, and their Native allies lost 23 killed and 47 wounded, for a combined American-allied loss of 70 killed and 206 wounded. In the aftermath of the campaign, Jackson adopted an orphaned Creek child whose parents had been killed at Tallushatchee, naming him Lyncoya, and Red Stick leader William Weatherford (Red Eagle) surrendered to the Americans.

In the final major campaign of the War of 1812, Coffee commanded a brigade that included free Black soldiers and Native American warriors from allied Southeastern tribes at the Battle of New Orleans in 1814–15. Jackson relied on Coffee’s brigade to hold the wooded terrain east of the main British column. Coffee’s men were the first American troops to engage the British, using the cover of trees and brush to deliver effective fire and disrupt the enemy’s advance. Their actions contributed significantly to the American defensive success that secured New Orleans and enhanced Jackson’s national reputation. For his wartime service, Coffee received a grant of 2,000 acres of land in the vicinity of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which he later deeded to his sister Mary.

After the war, Coffee’s fortunes rose and fell with the speculative economy of the Southwest. Following some unsuccessful investments, he turned more intensively to professional surveying, a field in which he had long experience. In 1816, he surveyed the boundary line between the Alabama Territory and the Mississippi Territory. Government surveyors such as Coffee often profited by selling advance information about land quality and location to speculators, and Coffee ensured that he received half the proceeds his clerks earned from such sales. He himself became a prolific land speculator and was a founding member of the Cypress Land Company, which played a role in the development of northern Alabama. He eventually moved near Florence, Alabama, where he continued his surveying and land ventures and remained within Jackson’s political circle as Tennessee and the Gulf South became central to national expansion.

When Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States in 1828, Coffee’s long-standing personal and military association with him led to a significant federal role. Jackson was committed to the removal of Native American nations from the southeastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River, a policy formally authorized by Congress through the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Jackson appointed Coffee, together with Secretary of War John Eaton, as his representative to negotiate treaties with Southeastern tribes to extinguish their land titles and secure their removal. In this capacity, Coffee helped negotiate the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830 with the Choctaw Nation, by which the Choctaw ceded their remaining lands east of the Mississippi and agreed to removal to Indian Territory. He also began negotiations with the Chickasaw, but the United States did not conclude a removal treaty with the Chickasaw until after his death. These treaty efforts, in which Coffee played a central part, facilitated large-scale American settlement in the Southeast while contributing to the forced displacement and suffering of Native peoples.

John R. Coffee spent his final years in and around Florence, Alabama, where he continued to manage his landholdings and remained a respected figure among Jacksonian Democrats and local elites. He died in Florence on July 7, 1833, at the age of 61.