The battlefields of KwaZulu Natal is a ride I can't wait to do. Here is a little article about the amenities around the area.
Finally, here is a list of the sub routes of the self ride/drive tours.

I noticed an article in The Independent (UK) about the lesser known Australian contribution to the Somme battles near the end of the First World War. It's the 90th anniversary and it seems that there will be a special commemoration in the week leading up to the 25th of April at Viller-Bretonneux.

I may be dusting down the big cat for the first big ride of the year.

El Gato Negro

The War of 1812 coincided with an uprising amongst part of the Creek Indian nation that was rebelling against the U.S. governments attempts to "civilize" them. For the "volunteers" of Tennessee, including future President Andrew Jackson, the majority of the War of 1812 was spent fighting Indians and not the British.

In 1811, Tecumseh of the Shawnee, visited the distant cousin Creek and encouraged rebellion against the white man's ways. The tribe split over whether to follow their ancient ways or throw in their lots with the white man. Those for integration with the USA were called "White Sticks" and those who favored fighting were called "Red Sticks." This Creek civil war was destined to go beyond the nation and did soon enough with a slaughter of over 250 whites / mixed raced Creeks near Mobile, Alabama in August 1813. This caused the predictable call for retribution and U.S. military action. Enter "Old Hickory" Jackson and his Tennessee Volunteers.

In late 1813, Jackson entered Alabama and set up a supply post (Fort Deposit)and a forward post on the Coosa river(Fort Strother) in northern Alabama and began operations against the Creek. Almost from the start, Jackson was beset with mutinous Tennesseans who felt that time spent back in Tennessee counted as part of their enlistment, whilst Jackson felt it did not. Many Tennesseans left, but Jackson pushed on with what was left of his force and a couple of green Regiments that had just arrived from west Tennessee.

Being Old Hickory meant doing hard things anyway, so Jackson set off for the known Creek encampment at Emuckfau / Emuckfaw Creek. He camped within hearshot of the encampment on 21 January 1814 and sent out patrols to find them. The patrols reported that not only did they find them, the Creeks knew of them too. At daybreak the next day, the Creek attacked front and rear, but were thrown back. Jackson counter-attacked and killed a good many. He then wanted to take the initiative and destroy their base. Jackson sent his old friend, General John Coffey, to root out the Creek base on Embuckfau Creek. Coffey went forth, but found the place too well defended and retired. Once Coffey returned, the Creeks attacked Jackson again with a feign on one side and a main attack on the other. Once again, the Creeks were thrown back, but Jackson was in trouble with bloodied, green troops in "Indian Country" with little back up. Jackson felt he need to retire and re-enforce at Fort Strother.

On his way out of the area, Jackson camped on Enitachopco Creek on the 23rd and fixed fortifications, knowing that another attack was likely. Luckily, they got a quiet night and they headed out in the morning. The quiet was not to last. Not long on the trail, they began crossing Enitachopco Creek and the rear guard was put to the run by the Creek attack. The panic spread and a meltdown was looking likely, but Jackson managed to pull together enough to fend off the attack with even his Nashville artillerymen fighting hand-to-hand. Eventually the tide turned with more of the lead elements re-crossing the creek to take part. The Creek warriors began to slip and finally decided getting away from Old Hickory was better than dying in place.

Jackson had the upper hand in both engagements, eventually, but had found out how hard it was going to be to fight in this nearly unsupportable backwater of eastern Alabama.

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Motorcycle Ride

Try this ride which encompasses both battle sites at the two creeks.

Maps

At the confluence of the Two Medicine and Cut Bank Rivers is where the Marias River begins and flows east for approximately 60 miles to Lake Elwell, then on for another 80 miles where it meets the Missouri River near Loma, Montana. Somewhere along this stretch of river (possibly here), there lies an ancient site where Major Eugene Baker of the U.S. Army took his mixed detachment from the 2nd US Cavalry and the 13th Infantry to surround an encampment of Piegan Indians on 22 January 1870. (See a picture of Baker and some of the 2d Cavalry officers in 1871, here) What happened next is clear, but why is not so clear.
The area had seen an altercation between two hotheads, one white, Malcolm Clarke, and one Indian, Owl Child. Clarke beat Owl Child, who he claimed had stole his horses. Owl Child retaliated by killing Clarke. As so happened in those days, this caused cries for the army to make sure another white was not killed by another Indian, so Baker was sent to teach the Indians a lesson. Baker's detachment left Fort Shaw on 15 January 1870 and rode north to find a group of Indians known as the Piegans. Baker found an encampment at a big bend on the Marias River and surrounded it in the winter's night of 22/23 January 1870. There is some debate as to whether Baker knew it was the camp he was looking for or another one.

On the morning of the massacre, Chief Heavy Runner tried to stop the attack by showing papers that he claimed gave him and his people clear passage in the area. Regardless, Baker issued the order to fire on the camp and many women, children and elderly were killed, the camp was burned and the survivors set afoot in the Montana winter without provisions.

Some said Baker knew that it as the wrong encampment, some said he didn't care, some said he was a drunken commander and didn't know what was happening. None of the PR options were good and the Army made it worse by ignoring, at the least, but probably covering up the massacre. As so often happens in these cases in the U.S. Army, a young soldier steps up where his superiors have fallen down and tells the truth. Lieutenant William Pease, acting as a Blackfoot agent, reported the massacre to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Ely Samuel Parker. Parker, a Civil War veteran, confidante to U.S. Grant and an Iroquois Indian whose real name was Donehogawa, demanded a investigation, but the outcome was prevarication as the Army closed ranks with General Sherman saying he would prefer to believe his soldiers.

In the end, no official recognition of the massacre was forthcoming and only time has brought a gradual acceptance of the fact of this massacre. Author Dee Brown, in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, puts the casualties at 33 men, 90 women and 50 chldren. Best research on the topic seems to be by Stan Gibson. He and Jack Hayne are working on a book on the topic.

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Motorcycle Ride

This is a long ride starting and ending at Browning, Montana at the Museum of the Plains Indians. The ride passes through the origin of the Marias and also runs about 5 miles north and parrallel to the Marias for a good while on the beautiful U.S. Highway 2.

Maps

The battle between Radway and Kineton in Warwickshire, known as Edgehill, provided the field for the English Civil War's first major confrontation.
The plodding Earl of Essex had been sent by Parliament to seek out the King's forces before they could reach critical mass and threaten London. Essex probably lost that opportunity by taking his time getting into the Midlands and finding the King's forces. The King wasn't much better in not knowing that Essex was near, until Prince Rupert's patrol stumbled across the Parliamentarian Quartermasters in nearby Wormleighton. The King decided to alight atop Edgehill, which sits about 300 feet above the plain running northwest several miles to the village of Kineton where the Parliamentarians were. Essex moved into the plain and made clear that he would not assault the King on the formidable hill. The King decided to issue battle so he gave the order to descend the hill and make contact.
As would be the case throughout the war, Prince Rupert's cavalry, on the right, would start the action and provide the King with an early advantage by driving the Roundhead cavalry from the field. However, like so many other times to come, Rupert could not control them after the initial assault and they gave chase well beyond the battlefield. Most of the cavalry of both sides was gone from the field when the infantry engagement began. With the Royalist right exposed, Essex sent some of the little remaining horse he had to attack the King's right flank. In the middle, the battle ebbed and flowed back and forth. A hole opened in the middle of the King's lines that another small Parliamentary cavalry force breached and attacked the Royalist artillery and returned to catch fire from its own artillery. A general sense of mayhem and confusion descended on the field, until dark, when both sides retired.
Poor leadership, poor execution and weak will led to a battlefield stalemate that neither side was keen to re-open the next morning. Essex slipped away to the safety of Warwick, leaving the road to London open. However, the King seemed to have lost his initial desire to move on London quickly. All in all, not satisfactory for either side, but nothing strategically significant resulted either.

Rides, Routes and Waypoints

20-30 miles, depending on the options chosen. Take the B4100 out of Banbury, taking the left hand "Y" near Warmington onto the B4086 up to Edgehill escarpment. Follow the B4086 through the battlefield from Edgehill to Kineton to simulate Rupert's advance. Continue through Kineton until you meet the B4455 and turn left and follow to the A422. Turn left on the A422 and follow this beautiful road through countryside and back onto Edgehill from the south. In between, there are multiple lanes through the battlefield, but many end abruptly at the entrance of a MOD installation nearby.
Use Ordnance Survey Landranger map 151 and the battlefield is centred on SP 360490. If using a roadmap, the battlefield is centred between the villages of Radway and Kineton, northwest of Banbury.