In 1816, General E.P. Gaines (namesake of D.I.'s Fort Gaines as well as General Gaines Street) who was stationed at Fort Montgomery near present-day Tensaw in northern Baldwin County decided to experiment with a Gulf route to supply the new remote Army posts on the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers that were not served by any major roads. Fort Bowyer on Mobile Point became a major port of call on this Gulf route with flotillas and convoys bound for Apalachicola Bay stopping there for mail, for passengers or for refuge from bad weather. In the late fall of 1817, one of these U.S. Army supply flotillas taking the Gulf route to Apalachicola Bay passed Mobile Point on a voyage that would result in the death of many of its passengers and would launch the first of many so-called Seminole Wars which would at intermittent intervals consume the resources of the U.S. for the next forty years. This week's DAUPHIN ISLAND HISTORY post contains a chronology of the events leading up to SCOTT'S MASSACRE. This list of events will show that this tragic incident which led to war was produced by the necessity of using the Gulf route to supply the new American outposts established on the newly opened land acquired by the U.S. by theTreaty of Fort Jackson. http://dauphinislandhistory.blogspot.com