General John Coffee served with distinction under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 victory over Great Britain at the Battle of New Orleans. Jackson and Coffee used the Natchez Trace and Colbert’s Ferry for troop movements before and after that victory. Coffee also gained recognition for his earlier participation in the 1814 Creek Indian conflict at Horseshoe Bend. Coffee County, Alabama, and Coffee County, Tennessee, were named in his honor. In 1817 he was appointed Surveyor General of the Mississippi Territory, from which the states of Mississippi and Alabama were created. His Hickory Hill plantation site and cemetery are located at Florence, Alabama, the city he founded a few miles from this site.