In August, 1813 the Creek civil war expanded beyond the borders of the Creek Nation, when the traditionalists faction, known as the Red Sticks, captured Fort Mims, (in today's Alabama), and slaughtered about 250 inhabitants without regard for age or gender. As a result, the government of Tennessee called for 3,500 volunteers to muster under the command of Major General Andrew Jackson.

          The road from Nashville to the Creek Nation led through the town of Fayetteville, just north of the Alabama border. In September 1813, just east of Fayetteville, on the waters of the Elk River, a mustering site for the gathering militia army was chosen. Standing over the mustering grounds, like ancient sentinels, were four grand white oak trees, each over two hundred years of age.

          The mustering ground was christened Camp Blount, in honor of Willie Blount, governor of the Tennessee at the time. Militiamen from around Middle Tennessee gathered here, and from Camp Blount marched into the Creek Nation, to break the back of the Red Stick movement at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in March 1814.

          Camp Blount would see service later in 1814 as a militia mustering ground for troops going to assist General Jackson in operations around Mobile and the defense of New Orleans. Three years later Tennessee soldiers would again rendezvous here, this time to assist Jackson in a campaign against the Seminoles in Florida.

          Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States in 1828, and re-elected in 1832. In 1836, the last year of Jackson's presidency, Tennessee troops would once again muster near Fayetteville, to follow General William Lauderdale to central Florida in the final war against the Seminole Nation. During the War Between the States both the Confederate and Union armies would use the land around Camp Blount as a camping ground.

          All during that time period, from 1813 to 1865, the soldiers of Tennessee camping and drilling on these grounds did so under the silent watch of the four camping ancient oaks. Those trees would continue to mark this land as the end of the 20th century neared. For four hundred years they stood, but they could not stand forever, and in recent years two of them fell to the march of commercial development.

          In 1998 students of the Advanced American history class at Lincoln County High School researched the history of Camp Blount, and had a State historical marker erected near the two remaining oaks by H. David Wright was commissioned in 1998 and completed in 1999. Set in a historical context, with troops mustering in Camp Blount in the background, the painting portrays Fayetteville physician, Dr. Charles McKinney, who ministered to the Tennessee troops during the Creek war, along with three Tennessee heroes associated with that war: General Andrew Jackson, Ensign Sam Houston, and Private David Crockett.

          Proceeds from the sale of the limited edition prints will be used to fund history scholarships for students at Lincoln County High School.