1816 and 1817 saw U.S. surveyors taking the field to lay off the 23
million acres of land in present-day Alabama and Georgia lost by the
Creeks after the defeat of the Red Sticks at Horseshoe Bend in 1814.
This began a new phase in the conflict between the United States and the
rebellious Indians and fugitive slaves of the Gulf frontier. To protect
the surveyors and the settlers who would follow them, the U.S. Army
established remote posts in Georgia: Fort Gaines on the Chattahoochee
and Camp Crawford (later renamed Fort Scott) on the Flint near
present-day Bainbridge. 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 these remote posts 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. A
lieutenant and about 20 enlisted men occupied the fort and it was
considered a dependency of Fort Charlotte (earlier named Fort Conde) in
Mobile.
After American troops attacked Fowltown across the Flint River from Camp
Crawford in November of 1817, the Lower Creek chiefs appealed for
ammunition to the British Governor of the Bahamas,
Cameron. In their request for arms, the chiefs wrote ,"...
they[Americans] have also settlers and troops which come from Mobile,
and go up the Appalachicola river ; thus seeing no end to those
invaders, necessity compelled us to have recourse to arms, and our
brethren are now fighting for the land they inherited from their
fathers,
for their families and forces."
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 Indian attack occurred on the Apalachicola River near the
present-day Chattahoochee, Florida, on November 30, 1817. Known as
Scott's Massacre, the Indians killed about 34 soldiers, 6 women and 4
children.
http://twoegg.blogspot.com/2008/11/remembering-scotts-massacre-of-1817.html
This horrible event caused President Monroe to order General Jackson to
raise militia and to attack the Indians in what would end up being
called THE FIRST SEMINOLE WAR. Below you will find a chronology of the
events leading up to SCOTT'S MASSACRE. This list of events will show
that this tragic incident that 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 the Treaty of Fort Jackson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im89zeoPTkE
A CHRONOLOGY OF THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO SCOTT'S MASSACRE
http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/scottmassacre.html
Early 1816: General E.P. Gaines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_P._Gaines ordered Lt. Col. Duncan Clinch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Lamont_Clinch to march his battalion of the 4th Infantry from Charleston to Fort Mitchell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Mitchell_Historic_Site on the Chattahoochee River just south of present-day Phenix City.
Mid-March 1816: Lt. Col. Clinch and the 4th Infantry arrived at
Fort Mitchell to protect the surveyors who were laying out the north
line of the Fort Jackson Treaty cession.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fort_Jackson
March 15, 1816: Secretary of War Crawford wrote General Jackson
in Nashville and instructed him to write the Spanish Governor at
Pensacola about what the Governor intended to do about the Negro Fort on
the Apalachicola.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Negro_Fort
March 21, 1816: General Gaines arrived at Fort Mitchell and found
Clinch's soldiers building flatboats. At this time Fort Mitchell could
only be supplied via the Federal Road from Georgia
http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2999 or from the roads coming from Fort Jackson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Jackson_(Alabama)
located at the confluence of the Coosa and the Tallapoosa near
present-day Wetumpka. These roads were so bad that wagons often had to
be abandoned and horses used as pack animals.
March 31, 1816: The soldiers of the 4th Infantry along with
Clinch and Gaines departed Fort Mitchell on flatboats headed downriver
to the point on the Chattahoochee where the north line of the Fort
Jackson cession met with the river.
April 2, 1816: The troops of the 4th Infantry selected a spot on
the east bank of the Chattahoochee where they began to construct a
stockade which would be called Fort Gaines.
April 23, 1816: General Jackson sent the letter about the Negro Fort to the Spanish Governor of Pensacola by way of an aide.
May 24, 1816: General Jackson's aide reached Pensacola and delivered his letter to the Spanish Governor.
Early June, 1816: Lt. Col. Clinch and the 4th Infantry made camp
on the west bank of the Flint River near its confluence with the
Chattahoochee. This camp was named Camp Crawford after the Secretary of
War and was located near present-day Bainbridge, Georgia.
June 15, 1816: General Jackson received a letter from the Spanish
Governor of Pensacola which stated that the governor could do nothing
about the Negro Fort until he received orders from the Captain-General
of Cuba. Jackson immediately wrote the Secretary of War and recommended
that the 4th and 7th Infantry along with a small naval force be used to
destroy the Negro Fort.
July 27, 1816: A U.S. Navy gunboat which had accompanied a
flotilla of supply boats along the Gulf route from New Orleans fired a
hot shot into the powder magazine of the Negro Fort on the Apalachicola
and destroyed it.
July 30, 1816: The supply boats from the armed flotilla could not
ascend the Apalachicola to Camp Crawford so their cargo was transferred
to small boats in order to ascend to the U.S. Army post on the Flint.
September, 1816: Lt. Col. Clinch had his troops build a permanent
installation at Camp Crawford. This stockade would become known as Fort
Scott.
December 1816: Due to an absence of major conflict with the
Indians, Fort Scott was abandoned and the 4th Infantry troops were
transferred to Fort Montgomery by an unknown route but it is presumed to
have been via Fort Mitchell to Fort Jackson.
February, 1817: Georgia Governor Mitchell wrote protest letters
to the Secretary of War and to General Gaines stating that the
evacuation of Fort Scott had left South Georgia defenseless.
February 2, 1817: The commander at Fort Gaines(Ga.) wrote to the
commander at Fort Hawkins (present-day Macon) that the Red Sticks had
stolen all the army property left at Fort Scott and had burned three of
the buildings.
April or May, 1817: A company of artillery from Charleston, acting as infantry, reoccupied Fort Scott.
June, 1817: The Prophet Francis
https://www.nps.gov/people/josiah-francis.htm returned from England to Ocklockonee Bay aboard Alexander Arbuthnot's ship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbuthnot_and_Ambrister_incident
July, 1817: Troops from Fort Scott were reinforced with 73 men
from the 7th Infantry bringing this post's strength to 112 men. The post
began to buy corn, coffee and sugar from the Forbes & Co. store at
Prospect Bluff (former location of the Negro Fort) on the lower
Apalachicola.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Gadsden
September 6, 1817: Major David Twiggs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._Twiggs
of the 7th Infantry had a talk from General Gaines translated and read
to the Indians at Mickasuky near present-day Tallahassee. Gaines had
demanded that the Indians surrender the individuals who were guilty of
murdering Americans.
September 18, 1817: The Chief of Mikasucky responded to General Gaines demand and declined to surrender the guilty Indians.
October 30, 1817: The Secretary of War ordered the 1st Brigade
consisting of the 4th and 7th Regiments to leave Forts Montgomery and
Montpelier in Baldwin County and march to Fort Scott. The order also
authorized Gaines to remove the Indians from the land ceded to the U.S.
by the Treaty of Fort Jackson.
November 19, 1817: Colonel Matthew Arbuckle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Arbuckle,_Jr.
commanded the 4th and 7th Regiments when they arrived at Fort Scott
after they had marched across South Alabama from Forts Montgomery and
Montpelier in Baldwin County. These soldiers had to build a new route by
constructing 90 miles of new road during their journey. With these
reinforcements, the total strength at Fort Scott was 876 men. The
difficulty of supplying these men caused General Gaines to order 3
provision vessels with 160 men to leave Camp Montgomery and Mobile at
about the same time that the troops began their march toward Fort Scott.
These vessels would more than likely have stopped at Fort Bowyer on
Mobile Point before embarking for Apalachicola Bay. It is believed that
these vessels arrived in Apalachicola Bay at about the same time that
the troops arrived at Fort Scott from their march from Baldwin County.
November 20, 1817: General Gaines ordered Major Twiggs and his
troops to march on Fowltown near present-day Bainbridge and capture
their chief and return him to Fort Scott. The troops were fired upon
when they reached Fowltown and returned fire. There were no U.S.
casualties but four Indian men and one woman were killed.
November 23, 1817: U.S. troops commanded by Colonel Arbuckle
returned to Fowltown and found it abandoned. While loading corn from the
Indians' cribs the troops were fired upon and they returned fire. One
U.S. soldier was killed. He was the first casualty of the Seminole Wars.
The soldiers burned all the buildings in the town and returned to Fort
Scott. The chief of Fowltown called for all Indians in the present-day
Tri-State Region (AL-FL-GA) to gather on the Apalachicola to attack the
supply boats destined for Fort Scott.
November 30, 1817: In order to move the supply boats upriver, a
line had to be attached to a tree on the shore and the boat "warped"
upriver by rolling the line onto a spool located on the bow of the boat.
As the boat was close to shore near the present-day boat landing at
Chattahoochee, Florida, the Indians fired a volley into the crowd of
soldiers, women and children on board the boat. Most were killed at that
moment but the Indians waded out to the boat and continued the carnage.
6 of the 40 soldiers survived with 4 of the survivors wounded. 6 or the
7 women were killed along with all 4 of the children. This incident set
into motion the series of events known in the present-day as THE FIRST
SEMINOLE WAR. In late December of 1817 another shipment of rations
arrived in Apalachicola Bay via the Gulf route but the boats were unable
to ascend the river due to the hostility of the Indians.
