USA > Florida > Historical sketches of colonial Florida > Part 5
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*Fairbank's History of Florida, p. 223.
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with a wharf in front of it is still standing, or at least, its solid brick walls are now those of the hospital of Dr. James Herron, whose dwelling house stands on the site of the Council Chamber of Fort George.
In that building was carried on a business which grew steadily from year to year during the British dominion, and afterwards attained great magnitude under Spanish rule, as we shall have occasion to notice in a future page. In building up that business, Panton had a most able and influential coadjutor in General Alex- ander McGillivray, whom we lately saw in the Council Chamber of Fort George. Through him their business comprehended not only West Florida, but extended to and even beyond the Tennessee river. In perfect security, their long lines of pack horses went to and fro in that great stretch of country, carrying all the sup- plies the Indians needed, and bringing back skins, peltry, bees-wax, honey, dried venison, and whatever else their savage customers would provide for barter. Furs were a large item of that traffic, for the beaver in those days
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abounded throughout West Florida, and was found even in the vicinity of Pensacola.
One of their ponds, still existing on Carpen- ter's Creek, four miles from the town, is sugges- tive of an instructive comparison between the fruits of the life-work of its humble construc- tors, and those of the twenty years rule, of a mighty monarch. Of the British dominion of his Majesty George III, in this part of Florida, the millions of treasure expended, and the thous- ands of lives sacrificed to establish and main- tain it, there exists no memorial, or result, except a fast disappearing bank of sand on the site of Fort George. From that barren outcome of such a vast expenditure of human life and money, we turn with a blush for the vanity and folly of man, to contemplate that little pool fringed with fairy candles," where the water lilies bloom, and the trout and perch flash in the sunlight, as the memento of a perished race,
* A name which the children of the neighborhood have bestowed on the bloom of a water plant, suggested by its wax like stem and its yellow point, and here mentioned to suggest to our people that it is time we should have popu- lar designations for others of our beautiful wild flowers.
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whose humble labors have furnished pastime and food to successive generations of anglers.
An unsuccessful effort has been made to obtain reliable information as to the number and description of the houses Pensacola contain- ed in its most thriving days during Governor Chester's administration. But the only account we have, is that of William Bertram, who though reputed an eminent botanist is hardly reliable, for he describes Governor Ches- ter's residence as a "stone palace, with a cupo- la built by the Spaniards;" # and yet, accord- ing to the description of the town in Captain Will's report, at the close of Spanish rule, it consisted of "forty huts and barracks, sur- rounded by a stockade;" and he witnessed at that time, the exodus of the entire Spanish pop- ulation. Besides, persons whose memories went back within thirty years of Governor Chester's alleged palatial residence, neither saw, nor even heard, of the ruins of such a structure.
Upon the same authority rests the statement, that the Governor had a farm to which he took
* Fairbanks Florida, p. 219.
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morning rides in "his chariot."* But a travel- er whose fancy was equal to the transforma- tion of a hut into a palace, may have trans- formed his excellency's modest equipage into a more courtly vehicle.
It is probable, however, that although Governor . Chester was not the occupant of a stone palace with a cupola, he lived in a sightly and comfort- able dwelling built of brick or wood, or perhaps of both. One such dwelling of his time, that of William Panton, was familiar, forty years ago to the elders of this generation. It stood near the business house of Panton, Leslie & Co. Taking its style and solidity as a guide, there existed several houses in the town within the last half century that could be identified as belonging to Governor Chester's day.
One of them was the scene of a tragedy ; a husband cutting a wife's throat fatally, his own more cautiously, or perhaps her cervical verti- brae had taken off the edge of the razor, for he survived. Thereafter, none would inhabit it, and consequently it rapidly went to ruin. It
Pickett,.Vol. II. p. 25.
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stood on the north side of Government street, a block and a half from Palafox. A jury acquit- ted him. Why? No one could conjecture, unless because she was his wife, and therefore his chattel, like the cow or sheep of a butcher.
In Governor Chester's time there existed a large. double story suburban residence, which was a distinguished feature in the landscape looking southwesterly from Fort George, or from any part of the Bay. It stood on the bluff between the now Perdido. R. R. and Bayou Chico. Painted white, it became the "white house" of the English, and "Casa Blanca" of the Spanish dominion.
It was the home of a family of wealth and social standing, composed of three-husband, wife, and daughter, the latter a child. Gardens belonging to it covered much of the area ofthat meadow-like district already mentioned. That home was to be the scene of a drama in three acts; the death of a child, the death of a hus- band, and a struggle of strong, martyrlike womanhood in the toils of temptation, tried to the lowest depth of her being, but coming forth triumphant.
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In examining the calendar of the Haldimand collection by Mr. Douglas Brymner, Archivest of the Dominion of Canada, we are impressed with the great and varied responsibility, labor, and care, attending the office of commander in chief of the American colonies, especially after Great Britain's, Canada, Florida, and Louisiana acquisitions. His administration involved not merely general superintendence of the military department, but likewise embraced the minutest details requiring expenditures of public money. We accordingly find General Gage, during Gov- ernor Chester's administration, dictating letters in respect to carpenter's wages * in Pensacola. Again we find him busy over a controversy which had sprung up there in respect to the employment of a Frenchman, Pierre Rochon, i to do carpenter's work, and furnish shingles, to the exclusion of Englishmen. Upon economical grounds his excellency decided in favor of Rochon. Pierre was evidently an active and enterprising man. Before he came to Pensacola
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*Canadian Archives B. Vol. 15, p. 267.
*Id. 15 p. 195.
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to secure for himself all the public carpentering and shingle business there, he had enjoyed the like monopoly at Mobile.
Again we find the General engaged with a small matter at Red Cliff .* Lieutenant Cambell, of the engineer department, had furnished some carpenters who were employed there with candles and firewood, doubtless because they could not otherwise be procured by the men. That act ofkindness brought the benevolent lieu- tenant the following scorching reproof: "I am sorry to acquaint you that his excellency, General Gage, is greatly displeased at your giving of the carpenters candles and firewood; and he desires to know by what authority you assumed to give those allowances, or by what order they were given ? For his excellency declares, that a shilling shall not be paid on that account." New York, 16 Feb. 1773. S. Sowers, Captain of Engineers.
Even the quality of bricks used on the public works at Pensacola was a matter of interest to the commander in chief. In 1771, a brick man-
*Id. 17 p. 267.
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ufactured by the British, and one by the Span- iards, nearly a century before, as General Haldi- mand says, were sent to headquarters at New York, for the judgment of his excellency as to their comparative merits.
These letters impress us the more with the cares of General Gage, when we reflect they were written at the time of the troublesome tea busi- ness at rebellious Boston; and when the flowing tide of the revolution, as may be discerned from almost every page of the calendar, was daily rising, and threatening to sweep away the sup- ports of British authority in the colonies.
In a former page mention is made of a Phila- delphia lady, whose name occurs in the Pensacola correspondence of an earlier day. It is but fair, therefore, that we should not leave unnoticed a New York lady who is mentioned in letters of Governor Chester's time; the more so, because she seems to have been one of those thrifty housewives, who do not entirely depend upon the tin can, and green glass jar of the shop to supply their families with preserved fruits and vegetables; besides, there can be brought in with her extracts from letters, exemplary of the
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courtly style, with which in Governor Chester's day, a gentleman returned, and a lady received his thanks for a small courtesy. *
General Haldimand, at Penascloa, writes Captain S. Sowers, the husband of the lady, who is in New York :
"I most respectfully ask Mrs. Sowers, to per- mit me, through you, to tender to her my most grateful thanks for the three jars of pickels."
The Captain replies: "Mrs. Sowers, with pleasure, accepts your thanks for the pickels, and when ye season comes for curing of them, she will send you another collection which she hopes will be acceptable."
In this stirring, short-hand, type-writing age, the form of a like exchange of courtesies would probably be: "Pickels received. Thanks."
Though there was no lack of lawyers and doctors, who it is said, lived in fine style, there was a sad want of clergymen or preachers in the province. There was but one of whom wehave any account up to 1779, and he was stationed at Mobile. Stuernagel, the Waldeck Field
*Canadian Archives B. Vol. 15 p. 161.
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Preacher, on his arrival in Pensacola, in that year, christened a boy whose parents had been waiting eight years to make him the subject of the holy office. He also baptized men who had been watching from their boyhood for an opportunity to make their baptismal vows. Nor can there be found a reference to church or chapel during the English dominion .*
The most prosperous and promising days Pen- sacola ever saw, except those since the close of the civil war, were from 1772 to 1781. As the American revolution advanced, additions were made to the numbers, intelligence and wealth of its population, owing to causes already men- tioned: It was the capital of a province rich in its forests, its agricultural and other resources. Its Bay was prized as the peerless harbor of the Gulf, which it was proposed by the British gov- ernment to make a great naval station, a beginning in that direction having been made by selecting a site for a navy yard adjoining the town to the westward. Its commerce was daily on the increase; not only in consequence
* Von Elking Vol. 11 p. 139.
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of the extension of Panton, Leslie & Co.'s trade with the Indians, but other enterprising mer- chants who had been added to the population, were engaged in an export trade, comprising pine timber and lumber, cedar, salt beef, raw hides, cattle, tallow, pitch, bear's oil, staves, shingles, honey, beeswax, salt fish, myrtle wax * deer skins, dried venison, furs and peltry. This trade, and the £200,000 annually extended by the British government, as well as the disburse- ments of the shipping, constituted the sources of the prosperity of the town.
This period, besides being a season of growth and prosperity to Pensacola, as well as the rest of the Province, was one of repose, undisturbed by the march of armies, battles, and the other cruel shocks of war that afflicted the northern colonies. But it was not to remain to the end a quiet spectator of the drama enacting on the continent. It, too, had an appointment with fate. Though not even a faint flash of the northern storm was seen on its horizon, yet
+ This is the product of the wild myrtle, obtained by putting the seed into hot water, when the wax liquifies and floats on the surface.
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there had been one for long brooding for it in the southwest.
The earthquake, too, that visited it on the night of February 6, 1780,* was but a presage of that which on May 8, 1781, was to shakeit to its center ; and prove the signal of an exodus of the English almost as complete as was that of the Spanish population in 1763.
*On the sixth of Febuary 1780, at night, a fearful storm arose with repeated thunder and lightning. An earth- quake was accompanied by such a violent shock, that in the barracks the regimentals and the arın racks fell from the walls in a great many places, and everything was moved in the rooms. The doors were sprung, chimneys were thrown together, and from the fires burning on the hearths, a conflagration threatened to burst forth. Neighboring houses clashed together, and those buried in the ruins cried for help. The sea foamed and raged; the thunder continually rolled. It was a terrible night. Only towards one o'clock, the raging elements in some measure again became subdued. Wonderful to relate, no human life was lost. "-Von Elking, Vol. 11, p. 144.
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CHAPTER XIII.
Military Condition of West Florida in 1778-General John Campbell-The Waldecks-Spain at War with Britain- Bute, Baton Rouge and Fort Charlotte Capitulate to Galvez-French Town-Famine in Fort George-Gal- vez's Expedition against Pensacola-Solana's Fleet Enters the Harbor-Spaniards Effect a Landing-Span- ish Entrenchment Surprised-The Fall of Charleston Celebrated in Fort George.
THE military condition of West Florida was changed as the revolutionary war progressed. There were no longer seen two or more regi- ments at Pensacola, one or two at Mobile, and one at Fort Bute, Baton Rouge, and Panmure. The call for troops for service in the northern colonies had, by the latter part of 1778, reduced the entire effective force of the province to five hundred men:
That such a reduction was thought prudent, was due to the peaceful relations of the Span- iards and the British, as well as those of the latter with the Creek and Choctaw Indians, at-
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tributable to the influence of Mc Gillivray, now a colonel in the British service.
In the latter part of 1778, however, the British government becoming suspicious of Spain, and anticipating her alliance with France, ordered General Clinton to reinforce West Florida. Accordingly, General John Campbell, a distinguished officer, was sent to Pensacola, with a force of 1,200 men, composed of a regiment of Waldecks, and parts of two regiments of Provincials from Maryland and Pennsylvania. They did not arrive, however, until the twenty-ninth of January, 1779. *
* It is to the presence of these Waldecks at the siege and capture of Pensacola, that we are indebted for the only de- tailed account we possess of those events. The Waldeck regiment was one of the many mercenary bodies of German troops which Great Britain hired to conquer her revolted colonies. On the return of the commands to Germany, after the close of the war, each commander was required to make to his government a detailed report of its experiences. In 1863, Max Von Elking published, at Hanover, two vol- umes containing the substance of those reports, entitled :
["Die deutchen Hülfstruppen im Nordamerikanischen Befrenings Kriege, 1776 bis 1783."]
The German Troops in the North American War of Inde- pendence, 1776 to 1783.
Those of the Waldecks extended from the day the regi- ment was completed at Corbach, where it was reviewed by the widowed Princess of Waldeck, and her court ladies,
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Early in 1789, General Campbell sent two companies of Waldecks to reinforce Fort Bute, which brought its garrison up to about 500 men under the command of Lt. Colonel Dickson.
At length Spain threw off the mask, and adopted a course which justified the suspicions of the British Court as to her inimical inten- tions. On June 16, the Spanish minister, the Marquis d' Almodovar, having delivered to Lord Weymouth a paper equivalent to a dec- laration of war, immediately departed from London without taking leave. Spain thereupon became an ally of France, but not of the United States. Nevertheless, under the influence of the Court of Versailles, Don Bernardo de Galvez,
on May 9, 1776, up to the return of its small remnant in 1783. The princess entertained them, and furnished them besides 100 guelden for a jollification-doubtless out of the hire she received for the hapless creatures. The re- mark of a courtier, that he would see "all those who came back riding in carriages," indicates the delusive hopes with which it was sought to inspire them. Nevertheless, it was thought prudent by the Princess, that the departing mer- cenaries should, to prevent desertion, be guarded during their journey to the Weser, where they were to embark, by the Green Regiment of Sharpshooters. The regiment con- sisted of 640 men, under the command of Colonel Von Hanuxleden. Stuernagel was the Field Preacher, or chap- lain, to whose journey Von Elking makes many references.
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the Governor of Louisiana, on June 19, published, at New Orleans, the proclamation of the Spanish King, acknowledging the independence of the United States. The dates of these transactions furnish conclusive evi- dence of a pre-arrangement, designed to enable the Spaniards to assail the British posts in West Florida before they could be succored by the home government.
In pursuance of that policy, Galvez at once began his preparations for offensive operations against Forts Bute, Baton Rouge and Pan- mure, in the order in which they are mention- ed. The great distance of Pensacola from them, as well as the want of facilities of communica- tion, assured him that with an adequate force at his command, General Campbell's first inti- mation of his operations would be the news of their capture.
In August, with a force of 2,000 men, Galvez began his advance on Fort Bute. As soon as Dickson was informed of his movement, he re- solved to concentrate his forces at Baton Rouge, leaving at the former post a few men to man the guns, and to make such a show of
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resistance as would give him time to perfect the defenses of the latter.
On August 30, Galvez appeared before Bute. After a contest of some hours, its handful of de- fenders arrested his movements by the time con- sumed in an honorable capitulation. Bute hav- ing been secured, Galvez pushed on to Baton Rouge. In his first attack, he was repulsed with the heavy loss of 400 men killed and wounded, which was within 100 of Dickson's entire force. In the next attack which was · made on the following day, the Spanish loss was 150. Although the loss on his side was in both attacks only 50 men, Dickson realizing that he was cut off from all succor, and that he must either surrender, or see his command grad- ually waste away under the repeated attacks of an overwhelming enemy, capitulated upon the most honorable terms. The command was pledged not to fight against Spain for eighteen months unless sooner exchanged. With loaded guns and flags flying the garrison was to march to the beat of the drum 300 paces from the fort and there stack arms. The officers were to re- tain their swords and every one his private
. of
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property. All were to be cared for and trans- ported to a British harbor by the Spaniards .* Fort Panmure, from which the garrison had been withdrawn for the defense of Baton Rouge, was included in the surrender.
It was not until the twentieth of October that a courier brought to Pensacola intelligence of the fall of the Mississippi Posts, although Baton Rouge had surrendered during the first days of September. When it was received it was not credited, but regarded as a false report coming from the Spaniards to entice the British com- mander from Pensacola in order that it might be captured in his absence. Even the report of a second courier coming, on the twenty-third, failed at first to work conviction; but at last all doubt was dispelled, and every effort directed to putting Pensacola in a defensive condition.
Why Galvez did not follow up his success at Baton Rouge by an immediate advance on Mobile, it is difficult to conceive, except upon the presumption of his ignorance of the weak- ness of the military forces there, and at Pensa- cola.
*Von Elking, Vol. 11, p. 142.
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In December, 1779, Clinton's expedition against Charleston sailed from New York; its destination veiled in such secrecy, that even General Washington, as well as the rest of the world outside of the British lines, was in the dark respecting it. Miralles, the Spanish agent, feared it was intended to recover the con- quests of Galvez in West Florida, and signified so much in a letter to General Washington. By the time the letter was received, however, the General had become convinced "that the Caro- linas were the objects, " and in reply so tells the Spanish agent.
It was during the interval of Galvez's inaction between the capture of Baton Rouge, and his attack on Mobile, that Chevalier de la Luzerne had a conference with General Washington, on the fifteenth of September, 1789, at West Point, with the view of bringing about such concert of movement in the American forces in the Caro- linas and Georgia, and the Spanish forces in Florida, as would be a check on the British in their movements against either. * But with
* Sparks, Vol. 6, p. 542.
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every disposition for such co-operation, the lat- ter being without authority to that end, went no further than to show his sympathy with the Spaniards, and his readiness to afford ad- vice and information, which he afterwards man- ifested in the letter to Miralles above mentioned.
In that letter, referring to the capture of Fort Bute and Baton Rouge, he says: "I am happy of the opportunity of congratulating you on the important success of His Majesty's arms." Itis hardly probable, however, that General Wash- ington would have been so ready to congratu- late Miralles on those successes, had he known that in consequence of Galvez's bad faith, their result would be to increase the ranks of the foe he was fighting.
In the beginning of March, 1780, Galvez again began military operations, by advancing against Fort Charlotte. On the twelfth, after his demand for a surrender had been refused by Captain Durnford, the British commander, the fort was assailed by six batteries.
By the fourteenth, after a conflict of ten days, a practicable breach having been made, Durn- ford capitulated upon the same terms which
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Dickson had exacted at Baton Rouge. Hunger had conspired with arms to make capitulation a necessity. For several days before that event the garrison had been comparatively without food. When the gallant Durnford marched out of the breach at the head of a handful ofhunger- smitten men, Galvez is said to have manifested deep mortification at having granted such favorable terms to so feeble a foe. An effort was made by General Campbell to relieve Fort Charlotte, but it fell just as succor was at hand. The delay in rendering it was occasioned by rain storms, which, having flooded thecountry, greatly impeded the movements of the reliev- ing force. *
The gallant defense of Fort Charlotte by Durn- ford seems to have lead Galvez to reflections which ended in the conclusion that he was not, then, strong enough to attack Pensacola. He,
* Von Elking, Vol. 11, pp. 144-5. "It proved a horrible march. It almost continually rained. The men were forc- ed to wade up to their ankles through the soft ground, or through mud. It was only possible to cross the greatly swollen streams by means of the trunks of the trees. The men could only pass singly on them, and the one who miss- ed his footing, and stept into the water below wasirretriev- ably lost."
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accordingly, made no further movement, until he had procured from Havana a supply of heavy artillery, and a large additional force.
That it was a part of his plan to advance upon Pensacola immediately after the capture of Mobile, is evidenced by the Spanish Admiral Solana's fleet appearing, and anchoring off the harbor, on March 27, hovering about as if in expectation of a signal from the land until the thirtieth, and then sailing away. The appearance of a scouting party of Spaniards about the same time, on the east side of the Perdido, likewise pointed to such a design.
Be that as it may, Galvez made no further movement in West Florida until February, 1781, the eventful year of the great American rally ; the year that witnessed Morgan's brilliant victory, on the seventeenth of January at the Cowpens; and Green's masterly strategy, culminating on the fifteenth of March at Guildford Court House in an apparent defeat, but in sequence, a victory, for it sent Cornwallis to Yorktown for capture on the nineteenth of October.
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