"...Peter McQueen, who gathering a band of 300 warriors and collecting $400, set out for Pensacola early in July to get powder. The Spanish governor treated the Indians civilly and being in fear of violence gave them guns powder and ball."
"News of McQueen's expedition soon reached the American settlements above Mobile, where Colonel James Caller issued a proclamation calling for volunteers to attack McQueen. A large number of the Americans under the leadership of Caller, Samuel Dale, and...Dixon Bailey whose wife had been taken prisoner by McQueen, started on July 26 to intercept McQueen. On the next day they surprised the Indians at a place called Burnt Corn, about 80 miles north of Pensacola, and captured some of their stores though with a loss to themselves of 2 killed and 15 wounded. Thoroughly angered by the attack and determined to revenge himself, McQueen gathered about 800 Indians and on August 20 started in search of the men who had attacked him at Burnt Corn. McQueen's strongest ally was William Weatherford...who was bitterly hostile to Bailey and to Daniel Beasley...who had been engaged in the attack on McQueen. Both Beasley and Bailey were then at a stockade called Fort Mims, at the junction of the Alabama and the Tombigbee about 35 miles above Mobile."
"Governor Ferdinand L. Claiborne had sent Major Beasley with about 180 men to Fort Mims and subsequently urged Beasley to exercise the utmost vigilance and caution charging him to complete the blockhouses and to strengthen the blockades so as to be prepared against sudden attack. The refugees in the fort chose Dixon Bailey as commander, he being very popular for his share in the Burnt Corn expedition. Under some unaccountable delusion, neither Bailey nor Beasley acted as though there were any danger."
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