General John R. Coffee

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Birth: Jun. 2, 1772 Prince Edward County Virginia, USA

Death: Jul. 7, 1833 Lauderdale County Alabama, USA

General John R Coffee son of Captain Joshua and Elizabeth (Graves) Coffee married Mary Donelson, 3 Oct 1809 in Davidson Co., TN. There were ten known children born of this union: Mary (Hutchings), John Donelson, Elizabeth, Andrew Jackson, Rachel Jackson (Dyas), Alexander Donelson, Catherine Harriet, Emily, William Donelson and Joshua Coffee.

General John R Coffee fought in the War of 1812 under the command of Andrew Jackson. He raised the 2nd Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Riflemen, that was made up of primarily Tennessee militiamen and a few Alabamians. On 4 Sep 1814 he was involved in the Andrew Jackson - Benton Brothers duel. He married Mary Donelson daughter of John and Mary (Purnell) Donelson and relative of Andrew Jackson's wife Rachel Donelson Robards Jackson. His father Captain Joshua Coffee is believed to have served in the Revoltionary War.

He was a merchant, a partner in land speculation with Andrew Jackson and worked as a surveyor in Florence, Lauderdale Co., AL. Surveying the boundary line between Alabama and Mississippi.

Coffee Counties Alabama and Tennessee; Coffeeville Mississippi were named after him.

Family links:

Parents:

• Joshua Coffee (1745 - 1797)
• Elizabeth Graves Coffee (1741 - 1804)

Spouse:

*Mary Donelson Coffee (1773 - 1871)*

Children:

*John Donelson Coffee (1815 - 1837)*

• Elizabeth Graves Coffee (1817 - 1838)*
• Alexander Donelson Coffee (1821 - 1901)*
• Rachel Jackson Coffee Dyas (1823 - 1892)*
• Catherine Harriett Coffee (1826 - 1881)*
• Emily Coffee (1828 - 1829)*
• William Donelson Coffee (1830 - 1903)*
• Joshua Coffee (1832 - 1879)*

Burial: Coffee Cemetery Florence Lauderdale County Alabama, USA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Coffee

John Coffee (June 2, 1772 – July 7, 1833) was an American planter and military leader. He was considered the most even-tempered and least selfish of Andrew Jackson's lifelong friends. He was described as a big awkward man, careless of dress, slow of speech, but kindly, tactful and wise.

Family

Born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, Coffee the son of Lieutenant Joshua Coffee (January 26, 1745-September 8, 1797) and Elizabeth Graves (January 28, 1742-December 13, 1804), and the grandson of Peter Coffee, Sr. (1716-November 1771) and Susannah Mathews (1701–1796). John Coffee married Mary Donelson, who was the daughter of Captain John Donelson III and Mary Purnell, on October 3, 1809. John Donelson III was one of the elder brothers of Andrew Jackson's wife, Rachel.

Career

Coffee was a merchant and land speculator. He and Andrew Jackson had been partners in Nashville merchandising just before Coffee married Jackson's niece. Jackson sold his partnership to Coffee before the wedding, taking notes for the sale. After the wedding, Jackson gave Coffee the notes as his wedding present to the couple.

He challenged Nathaniel A. McNairy for publishing derogatory statements about Jackson. The duel took place on March 1, 1806, over the Tennessee line in Kentucky. During the course of the duel, McNairy unintentionally fired before the word, wounding Coffee in the thigh. In reparation, McNairy offered to lay down his pistol and give Coffee an extra shot. The weapons used in this duel were later used in the Jackson-Dickinson duel on May 30, 1806.

At the beginning of the War of 1812, Coffee raised the 2nd Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Riflemen, composed mostly of Tennessee militiamen (and a few Alabamians). In December 1812, Governor Willie Blount had called out the Tennessee militia in response to a request from General John Wilkinson and the U.S. Secretary of War. Under Jackson's command, Coffee led 600 men in January 1813 to Natchez, Mississippi Territory, via the Natchez Trace, in advance of the rest of the rest of the troops, who traveled via flatboats. After the two groups reunited in Natchez, Wilkinson and the U.S. government disbanded Jackson's troops. All marched back to Nashville to disband, on the march during which Jackson earned the nickname Old Hickory. They arrived in Nashville on May 18, 1813.

On September 4, 1813 Coffee was involved in the Andrew Jackson-Benton Brothers duel in Nashville, knocking Thomas Benton down a flight of stairs after Benton's failed assassination attempt on Jackson.

In October 1813, the 2nd was combined with Col. Cannon's Mounted Regiment and the 1st Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Gunmen to form a militia brigade of mounted infantry. Coffee was promoted to brigadier-general and placed in command.

Coffee then led his brigade, which consisted largely of Indians and freed blacks, at the Battle of New Orleans, where they played a key role in holding the woods to the east of the redcoats' column. Coffee's brigade was the first to engage the British, firing from behind the trees and brush.

General Coffee was again Jackson's chosen advance commander in the Creek War. Under Jackson's command, he led his brigade at: the Battle of Tallushatchee, the Battle of Talladega, and the Battles of Emuckfaw and Enotachopo Creek, where he was seriously wounded, and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

Later life

After the war and some failed investments, he began work as a surveyor, laying down the town of Florence, Alabama, and in 1816 he surveyed the boundary line between Alabama and Mississippi.

He later moved to and died near Florence, Alabama.

Coffee County, Alabama, Coffeeville, Alabama, Coffeeville, Mississippi and Coffee County, Tennessee are named in his honor.

Research Notes

Researchers often confuse this General John Coffee with General John E. Coffee the U.S. Congressman from Georgia. This John, also known as "Tennessee John" and John E. were first cousins. The two Find-a-Grave Memorials linked below, with additional state and spouse information, are for both Generals to help more clearly distinguish the two men. General John R. Coffee is buried in the Coffee Cemetery off SR 157 northwest of Florence, Alabama.

This John Coffee is sometimes referred to as John R. Coffee. Some researchers are attempting to document the use of this middle initial in original sources. John signed his name John Coffee in original papers examined to date. The use of this middle initial must be assumed to be in doubt.

Legendary Texas Ranger, John Coffee Hays was his nephew. " Jack " John Coffee Hays became the greatest Texas Ranger in history leading them in battle against the Mexican Army and Comanche Tribe from 1836-1848. He then surveyed the southwest founding Oakland California and becoming the first Sheriff of San Fransisco in 1850. Jack Hays was born in Tennessee and raised at The Hermitage where Andrew Jackson resided.

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John Coffee (1772-1833) served with distinction under the command of Gen. Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812 in Alabama and Louisiana and was one of the principal founders of Florence, Lauderdale County. After the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815, Coffee settled in north Alabama, where he became a surveyor, land developer, and plantation owner. In March 1818, he joined other influential investors to form the Cypress Land Company and subsequently established the town of Florence at the foot of the Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River.

Coffee was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, on June 2, 1772, to Lt. Joshua Coffee and Elizabeth Graves. In 1775, Joshua Coffee, a tobacco plantation owner, moved his family to North Carolina and later served in the Revolutionary War. Joshua Coffee died in September 1797; in his will, he left his son John five enslaved people, stipulating that they were to be sold to acquire land for him and his mother. Following these instructions, in 1798 John sold the people and moved with his mother to land he purchased along the Cumberland River near Nashville, Tennessee.

Not long after Coffee arrived in Tennessee, he met and befriended future U.S. president Andrew Jackson, with whom he formed a business partnership in 1804; John Hutchings, a nephew of Jackson's wife, Rachel, was a third partner. The men opened a tavern and dry-goods store four miles from Jackson's plantation, the Hermitage. The partners also invested in land in north Alabama. Coffee's friendship with Jackson was further solidified by Coffee's defense of Jackson in a duel fought with Nathaniel A. McNairy on March 1, 1806, in which Coffee sustained a slight wound. In 1807, Coffee was appointed as a surveyor of public lands on the Elk and Duck Rivers in Tennessee. He married Mary Donelson, the niece of Rachel Jackson, on October 3, 1809; they would have 10 children.

Shortly after the War of 1812 began, Coffee was commissioned as a colonel and formed the 2nd Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Riflemen, composed mostly of Tennessee militiamen with the exception of one company of volunteers from Madison County, Alabama. Coffee's regiment joined Jackson's forces in an expedition to Natchez in 1813 in anticipation of moving on to New Orleans. Once there, Jackson refused to turn his command over to Gen. James Wilkinson in New Orleans and instead marched the troops back to Nashville. Not long after their return, the news of the Fort Mims massacre in August 1813 resulted in the reactivation of the Tennessee militia to fight the Red Stick Creek uprising. Coffee was promoted to brigadier general in October and was given the command of a brigade consisting of approximately 1,300 cavalrymen that included his former 2nd Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Riflemen.

Coffee and his new brigade joined Jackson's command in Alabama and thus participated in what would come to be known as the Creek War of 1813-14. From the hastily constructed Fort Strother on the Coosa River located about 30 miles south of present-day Gadsden, General Jackson dispatched troops to attack nearby Red Stick towns. On November 3, 1813, Coffee's brigade won the first battle of the Creek War when his 900 mounted troops surrounded and destroyed the Creek town of Tallushatchee, 13 miles east of Fort Strother. Among the Creeks, 186 were killed in the battle, including a number of women and children. Coffee's troops suffered only five dead and 41 wounded. Coffee's victory convinced many other Creek towns to side with Jackson's forces.

On November 9, 1813, Jackson's army prevailed against Red Stick warriors who had surrounded the pro-American Creek town of Talladega. Although his forces, which included Coffee's mounted troops, inflicted approximately 300 casualties on the Red Stick forces, a gap in the encirclement allowed 700 Red Sticks to escape. In January 1814, Coffee engaged many of these same warriors near Talladega in the Battle of Emuckfau Creek. Seriously wounded in this battle, Coffee convalesced for several weeks before rejoining Jackson in March 1814, just in time for the Battle of Horseshoe Bend that ended the Creek War. Coffee's troops were deployed across the Tallapoosa River in the rear of the Creek encampment, denying the Red Sticks any possible path of escape in that direction.

After the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Coffee returned to Nashville for a short while to recruit soldiers before joining Jackson in Mobile to prepare a defense against an expected British invasion. After participating in a brief raid on the British garrison at Pensacola, Coffee's troops moved westward to Louisiana where, on December 23, 1814, he attacked British forces encamped at Villere's Plantation, just 10 miles south of New Orleans. This attack temporarily halted the British advance, giving Jackson more time to set up his breastworks defending New Orleans. When British reinforcements arrived at Villere's Plantation, Coffee's mounted riflemen dropped back to cover Jackson's left flank for the Americans' decisive victory in the Battle of New Orleans, which occurred on January 8, 1815.

On October 4, 1815, Coffee was appointed by Pres. James Madison to survey the boundaries created by the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which had ended the Creek War. Coffee then settled in north Alabama and in March 1817 was appointed by Pres. James Monroe as surveyor general of the public lands. He first supervised the survey of public lands in the northern Mississippi Territory, which included what is now Alabama, and then of all of the lands within Alabama when it became its own territory. In March 1818, Coffee and his fellow investors of the Cypress Land Company purchased the land that became the town of Florence. Investors included Jackson, future Alabama governor Thomas Bibb, and future associate justice of the United States Supreme Court John McKinley. Ferdinand Sannoner, a young Italian engineer who had served with French Emperor Napoleon as a surveyor, laid out the new town under Coffee's supervision. Also in 1818, Coffee purchased a plantation near Florence that he named Hickory Hill and moved his family there in 1819. That same year, Coffee was appointed to assist in the survey of the boundary lines separating Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Benefitting from his position as surveyor general, Coffee continued to invest in real estate, including a large tract purchased from the trustees of Cotton Port, located on the Tennessee River in Limestone County. During this time, the federal government appointed him to assist in negotiating several treaties with the Chickasaw and Cherokee nations in Alabama. As a result of these treaties, Coffee acquired large tracts of land for the United States, securing most of the Chickasaws' lands east of the Mississippi River by 1832.

Coffee held the position of public surveyor in Alabama until his death on July 7, 1833, at the age of 61. He was buried in the Coffee family cemetery located on the grounds of Hickory Hill. The epitaph on his tombstone was written by Pres. Andrew Jackson.