A keelboat sails down the Apalachicola River

Lt. Richard W. Scott's last command leaves Fort Scott.

by Dale Cox

The 38-foot keelboat Aux Arc ("Ozark") underway on the
Flint River arm of Lake Seminole in 2017.

As U.S. troops attacked Fowltown on November 21, 1817 (please see First Blood at Fowltown),  igniting a war that would continue more than 40-years, a major disaster was building on Florida's Apalachicola River.

The march of the 4th and 7th Regiments from Camp or Fort Montgomery north of Mobile to Fort Scott had necessitated the transport of supplies, ordnance, ammunition, uniforms, and other necessities by ship on the Gulf of Mexico. Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines contracted sailing vessels for this purpose, sending them out from Mobile in two flotillas.

The first of these, escorted by 1st Lt. Richard W. Scott and a detachment of the 7th Infantry, reached Fort Scott without significant incident. The second was guarded by a larger force under Brevet Maj. Peter Muhlenberg of the 4th U.S. Infantry. It reached the mouth of the Apalachicola River as the main bodies of the two regiments were marching across present-day Alabama.

The Aux Arc recreates the keelboats that carried tons of
cargoes on America's rivers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Anticipating the arrival of Muhlenberg's three ships, Gen. Gaines ordered Lt. Scott to take a detachment of 40 men and go back down the Apalachicola to meet them. The lieutenant had already navigated the river, and his experience, Gaines assumed, would prove helpful to the major. 

Scott, a Virginia-born officer with experience in the War of 1812, did not know that the general planned to attack Fowltown and provoke a war. In truth, Gaines himself probably did not expect his raid to ignite the fiery response that it did. Either way, he gave the lieutenant no indication of his plans, simply ending advise that Muhlenberg use the junior officer's detachment to help bring up the supply ships.

Many keelboats, as the Aux Arc demonstrates, were propelled
by either oars or sail. The vessel will be on the Apalachicola
River at Chattahoochee, Florida, for the Scott 1817 Seminole
War Battle Reenactment on December 6-8, 2019.

Lt. Scott's command left Fort Scott aboard a keelboat. These shallow-draft vessels were the workhorses of America's rivers long before inventor Robert Fulton took the steamboat New Orleans down the Mississippi River in the winter of 1811-1812. They continued to operate on rivers throughout the country for decades to come.

A good example of a keelboat is the Aux Arc (pronounced "Ozark"), the Arkansas-based vessel that will take part in this year's Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment on December 6-8. Fitted with a mast and sail and a small cabin, the Aux Arc is 38-feet long but draws only about 12-inches of water. Even when loaded with a full crew and a cargo weighing several tons, she still draws only 13-inches or so.

At least one account indicates that Lt. Scott's keelboat carried
a swivel cannon like this one on the Aux Arc. You can see it
fire at the Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment.

Like the Aux Arc, Scott's keelboat was also equipped with oars and could be rowed up or downriver by her crew when the wind failed. They could cover remarkable distances in short periods when going downstream. One keelboat leaving Fort Gaines, for example, traveled some 60-miles down the Chattahoochee River in a single night. Going upriver, of course, was much slower.

Scott's boat was somewhere on the Apalachicola when the Maj. Gen. Gaines sat down on November 22, 1817, to order a second attack on Fowltown. Maj. David E. Twiggs and his men had returned to Fort Scott the night before with news of their failure to capture Neamathla. The general decided to try again, this time from a different direction with a more significant force.

The task this time was assigned to Lt. Col. Matthew Arbuckle, who was given more than 300 men and a detachment of artillery. He was also ordered to carry wagons and bring away as much corn as possible from the log cribs in the Native American town. Food supplies were running short at Fort Scott, and Gaines hoped to supplement his own stocks by raiding those of the Creeks.

Fighting at Fowltown resumed the next morning.

div> Editor's Note: This article is part of a series that helps explain the background of the annual Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment. This year's event is coming up in two weeks on December 6-8, 2019. Please visit Scott1817.com for more information.

For a quick 30-second look at what to expect at the annual reenactment, please click play:

"The Scott Massacre of 1817" is now in print!

I'm pleased to announce that my latest book, The Scott Massacre of 1817, is now available as both a paperback and an instant download for Kindle at Amazon.com.

The book is the first in-depth study ever written of the Scott Massacre, the first U.S. defeat of the Seminole Wars. The battle took place on the Apalachicola River between the present-day towns of Chattahoochee and Sneads and resulted in a devastating 98% casualty rate for the army command of Lieutenant Richard W. Scott.

You can order through Amazon by following these links:

The Scott Massacre of 1817 (Book $19.95)

The Scott Massacre of 1817 (Kindle $9.95)

It is a little known fact that this bloody but almost forgotten battle on the eastern border of Jackson County led directly to the transfer of Florida from Spain to the United States. Had it not taken place, we might still be under Spanish rule and the Seminole Nation might still reign supreme.

The book details how a war of words between U.S. Army officers and the Creek Indian chief Neamathla escalated into a shooting war when Major General Edmund P. Gaines ordered his forces to attack the chief's village of Fowltown in what is now Decatur County, Georgia. The Battle of Fowltown ignited what is remembered today as the First Seminole War of 1817-1818 and so outraged a loose alliance of Seminole, Red Stick Creek and African (Black Seminole) that hundreds of warriors converged on the Apalachicola River.

The first target of opportunity to present itself to them was a large wooden boat slowly making its way up the river. Commanded by Lieutenant Richard W. Scott of the 7th U.S. Infantry, the vessel carried 50 men, women and children. As it reached the stretch of the river just south of today's U.S. 90 bridge between Chattahoochee and Sneads, the boat was attacked by hundreds of warriors who had ambushed themselves along the banks of the river.

By the time the smoke had cleared, Scott was dead along with most of his command. Of the 50 people on board the boat when the attack was launched, only one man escaped without injury. The total U.S. loss in the battle was 43 killed, 5 wounded, 1 captured.

The massive defeat ignited outrage in Washington, D.C. and led President James Monroe to order Major General Andrew Jackson to the frontier with authorization to invade Spanish Florida. Jackson's 1818 campaign all but destroyed the Seminole Nation west of the Suwannee River and easily demonstrated that Spain could not defend its old colony. Within three years, Florida would become part of the United States.

The Scott Massacre of 1817 benefits the historic preservation efforts of the West Gadsden Historical Society. It is now available through Amazon.com and soon will be available at the society's normal book retailers throughout Gadsden County as well as at Chipola River Book & Tea in Downtown Marianna (same block as Watson's and the Gazebo Restaurant).