Sending his wounded and sick men to Tennessee, Jackson sent his flatboats down the river, accompanied by the regiment of United States regular troops as a guard. Then, leaving Colonel Steele with a garrison of four hundred men to hold Fort Strother, and if necessary to co-operate with the troops left between that point and Fort Deposit in protecting the army's communications, Jackson began his final march into the Creek Nation, at the head of three thousand effective men. CHAPTER XXXI. THE GREAT BATTLE OF THE WAR. The Indians were now concentrated at Tohopeka, or the Horse Shoe, the peninsula already mentioned, which was formed by a sharp bend of the Tallapoosa River, as the reader will see by reference to any good map of Alabama, as the place has not lost its name. This bend incloses about one hundred acres of ground, and the distance across its neck or narrowest part is between three hundred and four hundred yards. Across this isthmus the Indians had constructed a strong breastwork composed of heavy timbers built up into a thick wall, and designed, unlike the ordinary Indian stockade, to withstand artillery fire. This breastwork was provided with port-holes through which the fire of the garrison could be delivered, and the angles of the fortification were so well and so regularly drawn after the manner of educated military engineers, that any force which should approach it in assault must do so at cost of marching under a front and an enfilading fire. Care was taken also so to dispose the houses within the inclosure, the log-heaps, felled trees, and even the earth in some places, as to make additional fortifications of all of them; and about one hundred canoes were fastened along the river-bank as a means of retreat to the forest on the other side in the event of defeat. [Illustration: MAP OF BATTLE SITE]