“Any understanding of this nation has to be based on an understanding of the Civil War,” the late historian Shelby Foote observed. It “defined us as what we are, and it opened us up to what we became.

“A Brutal Reckoning” is Peter Cozzens’ study of the bloody Creek War (1813-14) and its terrible consequences, to wit, the elevation of Andrew Jackson to national prominence and the ethnic cleansing of ...