The Second Spanish Period

1784-1821

Part Eleven

General Jackson Comes to Florida

On December 26, 1817, Secretary of State John C. Calhoun gave the order to General Andrew Jackson to go to Fort Scott and take command of the district. He told Jackson that he would command 800 U.S. Army Regulars, and 1,000 Georgia militiamen. His goal was to chastise the Seminoles, who were believed to number around 2,700, and remove the source of Indian hostilities, which were the British in Spanish Florida. In a letter dated January 6, 1818, Jackson wrote to President Monroe that he should take Florida from the Spanish and if allowed to, he could conquer Florida in sixty days. Because Monroe did not take immediate action after receiving this letter, he essentially gave Jackson the authority to do just that. Monroe would later claim that he told Calhoun to write to Jackson, telling him not to attack any Spanish installations, but either Calhoun never wrote the letter, or Monroe never actually asked him to.[1] After receiving his orders, Jackson wrote to eight different officers who had served with him before in the Creek War, and asked them to raise a group of Tennessee volunteers to march with him to Florida. Jackson left his home, the Hermitage, on January 22, 1818, headed for Fort Scott in Georgia just north of the Florida line. As he traveled through Tennessee, men eager to fight for Jackson volunteered and joined him along the way.

From Tennessee, General Andrew Jackson and his men made their way to Hartford, Georgia where he met up with General Gaines. Jackson’s force then reached Fort Scott on March 9. They had marched 450 miles in 46 days, a very quick pace, especially considering that they marched through rain and muddy roads along the way. Now his army consisted of 800 U.S. Army regulars, 1,000 Tennessee volunteers, 1,000 Georgia militiamen, and around 1,400 friendly Lower Creek warriors, who were under the command of Brigadier General William McIntosh, a Creek chief. Jackson sent McIntosh and his Creeks to make a military observation of the west bank of the Apalachicola River. On March 19, McIntosh reported that he captured an Indian village called Red Ground on the banks of the river without firing a shot. 180 women and children were captured, but thirty men and their chief had escaped.

Jackson reviewing his troops

Jackson reviewed his troops, and on March 10, 1818, the force left Fort Scott to meet up with American supply vessels heading up the Apalachicola River from New Orleans via the Gulf of Mexico. Marching along the east side of the river, the army spotted the vessels of Captain Isaac McKeever who provided the men their dinner for the night. The troops arrived at the ruins of the “Negro Fort” on Prospect Bluff on March 15. The soldiers could still see debris and charred remains from the 1816 explosion, just two years earlier.[2] Here the men rested as they waited for more supply vessels. In a letter to the Secretary of War, Jackson wrote that, “The eligibility of this spot, as a depot, determined me, and I immediately directed my Aid-de-camp Lieutenant (James) Gadsden, of the Engineer Corps, to furnish a plan for, and superintend the erection of a, Fortification. His talents and indefatigable zeal displayed in the execution of this order, induced me to name it Fort Gadsden, to which he is justly entitled.”[3]  In August of 1818, Jackson wrote that Fort Gadsden was a temporary, hastily built wooden fort, which without constant repair, would not last five years. Around this time, Duncan McCrimmon, a young Georgia militiamen, idiotically wandered away from the safety of Fort Gadsden to go fishing. While he was trying to return to camp, he got lost and was captured by a group of Red Stick Creek warriors who were attempting to gather intelligence on Jackson’s movements. The unlucky McCrimmon was taken to Francis Town on the banks of the Wakulla River to be interrogated and executed.

Milly Francis pleading for McCrimmon's life to be spared

The Red Sticks questioned McCrimmon on the size, ability, and goal of Jackson’s army, after which, his execution was prepared. One of the warriors desired to exact revenge on any American soldier available, for the killing of his sister, and the unfortunate McCrimmon was good enough for him. The leader of this village was Josiah Francis, better known as the Prophet, or Hillis Hadjo, the religious leader of the Red Stick movement within the Creek nation, who had fought against Jackson before, or “Sharp Knife”, as the Red Sticks called him, because he cut them deeply. Josiah Francis’s daughter, Milly Francis, around fifteen years old, heard the commotion of the upcoming execution of young McCrimmon and pleaded for her father to show mercy. The Prophet told her that he could do nothing about it because Creek law allowed people to take revenge, but he asked her to plead with the warrior in charge of the execution for the life of McCrimmon. Young Milly did just that, and by telling the warrior that this death would not bring back his sister, he was moved by her humanity, and decided to spare McCrimmon from death. Soon after, McCrimmon was traded to the Spanish authorities at Fort San Marcos for seven and a half gallons of rum.

The March towards Tallahassee and Miccosukee

On March 25, 1818 the second American supply vessel finally arrived at Prospect Bluff with eight days of rations. It would have to be enough because the army was soon to march to Miccosukee.[4] Jackson ordered Captain McKeever to take his boats out into the Gulf of Mexico and anchor at the mouth of the San Marcos River, in Apalachee Bay. Jackson had heard that several men who were wanted by the United States were guests of the Spanish at San Marcos. They were Josiah Francis, Peter McQueen, Alexander Arbuthnot, and George Woodbine. Jackson wanted to make sure they could not escape by boat when his army approached the fort. On March 26, leaving a garrison behind at Fort Gadsden, Jackson and his army headed northeast to the Miccosukee villages, crossing the flat pine-lands and swamps of present-day Liberty County. After three days of marching, the army reached the Ochlocknee River on March 29. Early the next morning they crossed the river at a point now called Jackson Bluff and set up camp for the day. Jackson expected reinforcements to arrive from Tennessee and allied Creek Indians under the command of Brigadier General William McIntosh to add to his numbers very soon.

Jackson sent Major David E. Twiggs ahead of the main body, with two-hundred allied Creeks, to try and surprise the Seminole towns of Tallahassee and Miccosukee, and other smaller surrounding towns. Twiggs entered Tallahassee on March 31, found it abandoned and burned it to the ground. The Seminoles had heard about Jackson’s army, and fled into the nearby woods. From the Ochlocknee River camp, Jackson continued toward Tallahassee, and his topographical engineer, Hugh Young, wrote “there was a small miry branch (a boggy area) near the village, the town (Tallahassee) was handsomely situated on a hill and consisted of ten or twelve houses with a large clearing cultivated in common.” Today, the hill that Young spoke of is located where the Tallahassee Mall used to be.

Brigadier General William McIntosh

Jackson’s march resumed, pretty much following the course of present-day State Road 20, entered the Red Hills of Florida, and camped along a pond located four miles west of the Miccosukee villages. The encampment seems to have been the lowlands along West Tharpe Street, about four miles west of North Monroe Street, where there may have been a pond, once upon a time. Before nightfall that day, Jackson caught back up with Twiggs, but still did not have his Tennessean reinforcements, or McIntosh’s Creeks. The army set up camp, but were awoken by Jackson at midnight to continue the march to Miccosukee and punish the Seminoles. Soon a rider entered Jackson’s camp informing him that his Tennessee Volunteers and McIntosh’s Creeks had finally arrived. He then decided to delay the attack on Miccosukee.

Jackson instead sent a detachment ahead to scout Miccosukee, where they spotted several Seminoles herding cattle. The army continued east, heading towards Miccosukee, which was the same village that allied themselves with William Augustus Bowles eighteen years earlier. On April 1, 1818, Jackson’s men reached a point of land that extended into a swamp, about one and a half miles away from the Miccosukee village. Here, the Miccosukee had dug in and prepared for a fight, and Jackson’s forces began to encircle them. Gunfire was exchanged, but when some Tennesseans fired on their allied Creeks by mistake, the Seminoles were able to escape during the confusion. The casualties of the battle were fourteen dead Miccosukee, and one dead American. U.S. forces marched on to the main village located on Lake Miccosukee, and found it deserted as well.

Angry, Jackson began a methodical hunt for other villages. General Jackson wrote, “The pursuit was continued through the Mekasukean Towns, until night compelled me to encamp my army. The next day Detachments were sent out in every direction to reconnoiter the Country, secure all supplies found, and reduce to ashes the villages. This duty was executed to my satisfaction: nearly 300 houses were consumed, and the greatest abundance of corn, cattle, &c. brought in.”[5] After burning the main village of Miccosukee to the ground, Jackson’s army visited six other villages, the locations of each were later given to Florida Governor William Pope Duval in 1824 by Tallahassee Seminole chief Chefixico. They were Canhallahatchee, at the head of the western branch of the St. Marks River, Tapalga on Tallinhatchee Creek, Allikhadgee on the St. Marks River just north of St. Marks Spring (near Natural Bridge), Ben Burgess’ town on Lake Ayavalla, present-day Lake Jackson, Lochiochee near the Georgia border, and Estotulga, also near the Georgia border.[6]

Jackson was furious that the Seminoles kept escaping him, and he felt that the British were somehow involved, since they were in the area conducting trade with the Indians. Andrew Jackson hated a lot of things, and the British were number one on that list. Jackson, again, had his army burn the village to the ground, but not before stealing 1,000 head of cattle, and 300 bushels of corn. Jackson wrote that “every indication of a hostile spirit was found in the habitations of the chiefs. In the council house of Kinhaje’s (Kinache’s) town, king of the Miccosukee Seminoles, more than fifty fresh scalps were found, and in the center of the public square, the old Red Stick standard, a red pole was erected, crowned with scalps, recognized by their hair, as torn from the heads of the unfortunate companions of Scott.” The body of Kinache was found, ending his forty-year reign over Miccosukee.

The soldiers forded the shallow Lake Miccosukee and attacked a small group of Seminoles, killing one black man and three Indians, one of which was wearing an American military uniform that he must have gotten off the body of a murdered soldier from the Scott Massacre.[7] Jackson believed that the Seminoles were being guided, armed, and helped by the British, which he alleged the Spanish allowed, so he turned his army southward towards the fort at San Marcos de Apalache. Jackson wrote, “From information received from Pensacola and New Orleans, I have no doubt that St. Marks is in possession of the Indians. The Governor of Pensacola (Jose Masot) informed Captain (Richard Keith) Call, of the 1^st Infantry, that the Indians had demanded arms, ammunition, and provisions, or the possession of the Garrison at St. Marks, of the Commandant, and that he presumed possession would be given from inability to defend it.”[8] The captured wife of Chief Chenubbee, who was also a captive of Jackson’s army, said that the Seminoles had obtained their ammunition from St. Marks, so Jackson was adamant about relieving the Spanish of the fort and using it for his own depot.  

Sources used:

Remini, R. V. (2008). Andrew Jackson: A Biography. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Heidler, D. S., & Heidler, J. T. (1996). Old Hickory's War: Andrew Jackson and the Quest for an Empire. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books.

Moser, H. D., Hoth, D. R., & Hoemann, G. H. (1994). The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume IV, 1816-1820. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press.

Kilgore, J. (19--). Old St. Marks in Florida: An Historical Work.

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[1] Remini, p.141

[2] Heidler and Heidler, p.137

[3] General Jackson to the Secretary of War, Head Quarters, Division of the South, Fort Gadsden, East Bank of the Apalachicola River, formerly  

      Negro Fort, 25^th March, 1818

[4] Heidler and Heidler, p.140

[5] General Jackson to the Secretary of War, Head Quarters, Division of the South, Camp near St. Marks, 8^th April, 1818

[6] Kilgore, p.19

[7] Heidler and Heidler, p.143

[8] General Jackson to the Secretary of War, Head Quarters, Division of the South, Fort Gadsden, East Bank of the Apalachicola River, formerly  

      Negro Fort, 25^th March, 1818