Peter Cozzens, A Brutal Reckoning, 1st ed., Signed

Description

With A Brutal Reckoning, Peter Cozzens vividly captures the young Andrew Jackson.  It is story of the pivotal struggle between the Creek Indians and an insatiable, young United States for control over the Deep South—from the acclaimed historian and prize-winning author of The Earth is Weeping. 

The Creek War is one of the most tragic episodes in American history, leading to the greatest loss of Native American life on what is now U.S. soil. What began as a vicious internal conflict among the Creek Indians metastasized like a cancer. The ensuing Creek War of 1813-1814 shattered Native American control of the Deep South and led to the infamous Trail of Tears, in which the government forcibly removed the southeastern Indians from their homeland.

Cozzens masterfully describes Andrew Jackson as a brilliant but harsh military commander with unbridled ambition, a taste for cruelty, and a fraught sense of honor and duty. The war also gave Jackson his first combat leadership role, and his newfound popularity after defeating the Creeks would set him on the path to the White House.

A conflict involving not only white Americans and Native Americans, but also the British and the Spanish, the Creek War opened the Deep South to the Cotton Kingdom, setting the stage for the American Civil War yet to come. No other single Indian conflict had such significant impact on the fate of America—and A Brutal Reckoning is the definitive book on this forgotten chapter in our history.

As New, Signed.

Cozzens, Peter. A BRUTAL RECKONING: ANDREW JACKSON, THE CREEK INDIANS, AND THE EPIC WAR FOR THE AMERICAN SOUTH. New York: Penguin Random House; 2023. 1st ed, 464p, Signed.