Fort Madison was one of the more substantial of the several fortifications constructed in the lower Tombigbee/Alabama region in the summer of 1813. Troops under the command of Colonel Joseph Carson built the sixty-square-yard stockade in August of that year about 225 yards away from the pre-existing Fort
Glass. Troops from Fort Madison were sent to bury the dead after the Kimbell-James massacre the next month, and the inhabitants of Fort Sinquefield fled to Madison after the attack on that stockade. Sometime prior to that, the people at Forts Glass and Lavier had also sought refuge at Madison. General Ferdinand Claiborne encouraged the inhabitants of Fort Madison to retreat to Fort Stoddert once he learned of what had happened at Sinquefield, and only a small number remained.

The site of Fort Madison lies near County Road 35 (Morning Star Road) near the community of Suggsville in southeastern Clarke County, Alabama. The fort is commemorated by an historic marker placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution in the early 1900s.