Benjamin Elliott Jones - A Kentucky Militiaman In The Second War Of America's Independence 1812-1815

Some twenty-nine years after Great Britain recognized the independence of its former colonies, the United States declared war on Great Britain on 18 June 1812 and more that 458,000 militiamen would ultimately serve in the U.S. forces during that war which would be fought on the high seas, the Atlantic seaboard, the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, the Canadian border, throughout the U.S. Northwest Territory, and in the Southern Frontier of the Gulf South.

U.S. Brigadier General William Hull invaded Upper Canada soon after the war began, but was forced to surrender Fort Detroit, the surrounding village of some 700 settlers, and the entire Army of the Northwest on 16 August 1812. Eight days after the fall of Fort Detroit, a militia company was formed in Wayne County, Kentucky to fight the British and their Indian allies. At the call for volunteers, Benjamin Elliott Jones volunteered to serve six months as a Private in Captain Micah Taul's Company, Seventh Regiment, Kentucky Militia and was eager to fight the British and their Indian allies in what many considered to be the Second War of America's Independence. The story of Benjamin Elliott Jones' military service with Micah Taul's Company is a story of seemingly endless marching and searching for an opportunity to engage the British and their Indian allies in battle-an opportunity that never came.

When the term of service for the militiamen in Taul's Company ended, they returned home and were treated as heroes even though they never met the British and their Indian allies in battle. Benjamin spent the rest of the war in Monticello struggling to follow the war's progress. He eagerly sought news about the battles fought and celebrated the victories won and agonized over the defeats suffered. Benjamin celebrated the end of the war in February 1815 and remembered with pride his role in that war-how he fought with Revolutionary War Veterans and the sons of such Veterans in the Second War of America's Independence.

Some three years after the war ended, Benjamin left Wayne County, Kentucky and migrated 255 miles south to Alabama and settled in Lawrence County. He later moved to Fayette County and was living there when Alabama seceded from the Union on 11 January 1861; he was living there when the Confederacy was formed at Montgomery, Alabama in February; and he was living there when the great war for Southern Independence began on 12 April 1861. He saw his family experience the hardships and horrors of a nation at war with itself and struggled with his family's allegiance to both sides of the conflict. For the rest of his life, he sought news about the war's progress just as he had followed the progress of America's Second War of Independence.