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.