Junaluska, a Cherokee born in the North Carolina mountains around 1776, gained fame in the War of 1812 when he recruited about 800 Cherokee warriors to aid Andrew Jackson in the Creek War. In early 1814, after months of rear duties, he joined Jackson's army of 2,000 men, including 500 Cherokee, in the attack on the Creek fortifications at Horseshoe Bend in northern Alabama. During the battle, Junaluska saved Jackson's life by tripping a Creek prisoner who lunged at him with a knife, and then helped turn the fight by leading a small group of Cherokees across the river to seize Creek canoes so Cherokee warriors could cross and breach the defenses. The battle ended in a devastating Creek defeat, and two weeks later Billy Weatherford surrendered, helping make Jackson a national hero. Jackson reportedly promised lasting friendship to the Cherokee, but Junaluska later recalled those words bitterly when the Cherokee were removed from their homes. Removed to the West, Junaluska walked back from what is now Oklahoma in 1842. In 1847 North Carolina granted him citizenship and land at what is now Robbinsville in Graham County. He died in 1858 and was buried above the town, where a monument was erected in 1910. The surrounding region, including Cheoah Valley, had been part of the Cherokee Nation and home to hundreds of Cherokees before the 1838 removal, when U.S. forces under Winfield Scott established forts and stockades across western North Carolina, built roads to gather Cherokee communities, sent many from Cheoah Valley to Fort Butler and then by the Unicoi Turnpike to Fort Cass, and forced them west in groups during the Trail of Tears, during which thousands died.