Welcome to the official blog of historian and writer Dale Cox. Articles here explore the history, archaeology, folklore, genealogy, and scenic beauty of the Southeast.
Scott 1817 event to feature amphibious battle on the Apalachicola.
by Dale Cox
Red Stick Creek warriors like these will join two days of
battle reenactments at Chattahoochee, Florida, on
December 7-8, 2019.
Soldiers and warriors are set to battle it out as the 19th-century comes to life at River Landing Park in Chattahoochee, Florida on December 6-8, 2019.
The beautiful park on the Apalachicola River will host this year's Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment, three days of living history events, demonstrations, battle reenactments, and more. Friday, December 6, is Education Day with more than 1,000 students coming from schools and home school groups throughout the region to learn about early 19th-century life.
The authentic 38-foot keelboat Aux Arc ("Ozark") will be
part of the fighting as warriors attack her from the banks of
the Apalachicola River on December 7 & 8, 2019.
Saturday, December 7, and Sunday, December 8, will be the main public days. The grounds will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern/8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Central each day. Visitors can explore the living history camps to meet Creek, Seminole, Miccosukee, Yuchi, and Maroon (Black Seminole) warriors and their families. Then they will meet early frontier settlers, the soldiers of Jacksonian Guard, early boatmen aboard the authentic 38-foot keelboat Aux Arc (pronounced "Ozark"), and more!
At 12:30 p.m. Eastern/11:30 a.m. Central on Saturday and 2 p.m. Eastern/1 p.m. Central on Sunday, the public is invited to witness full-scale amphibious battle reenactments along the banks of the Apalachicola River!
Ed Williams, the captain of the Aux Arc, demonstrates the
firing of the boat's swivel gun. Original accounts indicate that
such a cannon was fired in the Scott Battle of 1817. Photograph by Tim Richardson
The Scott 1817 event commemorates the first battles of the Seminole Wars, which took place along the Florida-Georgia border in November 1817. These began on November 21, 1817, with the first U.S. attack on the Creek village of Fowltown (please see First Blood at Fowltown), followed by more fighting in the town near Bainbridge on November 23 (please see Fighting continues at Fowltown).
The first two battles were launched by the United States. The third and most deadly fight, however, came when Native American and Maroon (Black Seminole) forces retaliated at today's River Landing Park on November 30, 1817. Several hundred warriors overwhelmed Lt. Richard W. Scott's command, which was making its way upriver to Fort Scott on present-day Lake Seminole. Lt. Scott, 34 soldiers, 6 women, and 4 children were killed in action, 5 other soldiers were wounded. Seminole/Red Stick Creek casualties are unknown.
Soldiers of Pensacola's Jacksonian Guard will take part in
the battle reenactments as musket, rifle, and cannon fire
flash across the Apalachicola River at Chattahoochee, Florida,
on December 7-8, 2019.
The dead of both sides will be remembered in a unique luminary service on Saturday night, December 7, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern/5:30 p.m. Central. Participants will light 400 luminaries along the Apalachicola River to honor the men, women, and children, who died in the fighting not only at the Scott Battle of 1817 but in other actions across the area in 1816-1819. Included will be 270 luminaries for the victims of the 1816 explosion that destroyed the Fort at Prospect Bluff or "Negro Fort" on the Apalachicola River.
In addition to the battle reenactments, visitors can visit a mobile museum, see exhibits, explore vendors, buy lunch, and much more. The soldiers of the Jacksonian Guard will provide military drill demonstrations and perhaps even teach a little old-fashioned dancing as well!
The Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment is FREE to visit and open to visitors of all ages on Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern/8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Central, and during the luminary service on Saturday night. Please visit Scott1817.com or www.facebook.com/scott1817 for more information.
River Landing Park is at 500 River Landing Road, Chattahoochee, Florida. See the map at the bottom of this page for directions. Also, be sure to enjoy this quick 30-second video preview! Just click play:
Outnumbered warriors stand and fight in the Georgia woods.
by Dale Cox
Red Stick Creek warriors at the 2017 reenactment of the
Battle of Fowltown during the Scott 1817 Seminole War
Battle Reenactment at Chattahoochee, Florida.
The main fighting of the Battle of Fowltown took place 202 years ago today at the Lower Creek village just south of present-day Bainbridge, Georgia.
The United States Army opened the battle with a night raid two days earlier (please see First Blood at Fowltown) but failed to kidnap the principal chief Neamathla as ordered to do. Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines ordered a larger force back to the village. Numbering more than 300 men and augmented by a section of light artillery, the strike force was led by Lt. Col. Matthew Arbuckle of the 7th Infantry.
The troops marched from Fort Scott on November 22, 1817, crossing the Flint River at the fort itself to approach Fowltown from the opposite direction of the first attack.
The Village of Fowltown historical marker near the probable
site of the important Lower Creek town where the Seminole
Wars started on November 21-23, 1817.
Arbuckle’s command halted at some point during the night to rest for a few hours. This guaranteed that the men would be fresh for the battle while also delaying their arrival at Fowltown until well after sunrise. This was probably an intentional way of avoiding the confusion of fighting in the darkness should Neamathla once again resist the presence of the soldiers. It was late morning by the time the troops came within sight of the village:
…The town which is about eighteen miles distant from this place and four from the Bluff we entered on the 23 Instant about 10 O’clock in the morning without opposition. On our approach several signal guns were fired by the Indians who no doubt discovered one of our flanking parties but at the time that all the troops had reached the town no Indians were seen and a few yells only were heard from a swamp which skirts its north east side. I took a position near the town so as to secure the troops from any fire which might issue from the swamp, and after posting such sentinels as would prevent us from being surprised I ordered the men to refresh themselves while the waggons were loading with corn.
Mountain laurel grows at the probable site of Fowltown south
of the Four Mile Creek swamps in Decatur County, Georgia.
Arbuckle was, by nature, a much more cautious officer than Maj. Twiggs. The fact that he approached Fowltown with flanking parties out is clear evidence that he was taking all proper steps to avoid being surprised. Such measures had likely been reinforced before his departure from Fort Scott by Gen. Gaines, who routinely cautioned officers under his command to be vigilant and careful.
The soldiers knew that Neamathla and his warriors were in the swamp and watching them, but the intensity of the attack still took them by surprise when it hit:
…[The loading of the wagons] was done and the troops were about to march when the Indians, fifty or sixty in number (as I judge) were perceived advancing by the sentinels posted in the swamp and fired on: The fire was instantly returned by the Indians who giving the War Hoop advanced rapidly towards our lines. Parties were immediately detached to take possession of the houses between our position and the swamp which movement checked the progress of the Indians and compelled them to fall back. A spirited fire was then kept up for twenty or twenty five minutes when the Indians retreated into the Swamp. During the affair the Indians frequently appeared in the open ground and from the number which were seen to fall, there can be no doubt but six or eight were killed and many severely wounded yet as the swamp was large and uncommonly thick I deemed it not prudent to pursue them into it or search for those who fell on its edges.
Neamathla (Eneah Emathla)
The principal chief of Fowltown.
Arbuckle was surprised that Neamathla would attack a much larger force over open ground. The intensity of the attack also took him off guard. The officer did not realize, however, that the corn stocks in the village were vital to the survival of men, women, and children through the coming winter. The town had relocated three times in four years. Its once extensive herds of cattle were gone. The corncribs likely meant the difference between life and death for many in the community. The warriors were fighting to save their homes and families and did so against odds of roughly 6 to 1:
…A spirited fire was then kept up for twenty or twenty five minutes when the Indians retreated into the Swamp. During the affair the Indians frequently appeared in the open ground and from the number which were seen to fall, there can be no doubt but six or eight were killed and many severely wounded yet as the swamp was large and uncommonly thick I deemed it not prudent to pursue them into it or search for those who fell on its edges. The skill and valor displayed by the officers and men engaged in the little affair affords a pleasing prospect should their services be required on another important occasion. The Indians must have been deceived as to our numbers otherwise they should not have had the temerity to attack us.
Pensacola's Jacksonian Guard demonstrates uniforms and
weapons of the Battle of Fowltown era. Courtesy of the Jacksonian Guard
Whether all of the officers and soldiers fought as valiantly as Arbuckle indicated is subject to some debate. Rumors swirled after the battle that Lt. Milo Johnson of the 4th Artillery had not performed well in action. Johnson had graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in the Class of 1815. Notable officers to come from that class included Gen. Samuel Cooper, who became the highest-ranking Confederate officer, and Col. William Chase, who supervised the construction of Fort Pickens at Pensacola, Florida. Johnson requested a chance to defend himself against the allegations being made against him:
Having understood that a report is calculating through the camp, that I behaved unlike a soldier in being separated from my compy. and while separated in the affair at Fowl Town, on the 23d of Nov. 1817. I am compelled in justice to myself to demand a court of enquiry, to investigate the truth of sd. report.
No further explanation of his actions during the battle has been found, and there is no evidence in the available military records that a court-martial was ever convened in his case. Subsequent events quickly overshadowed the Battle of Fowltown and Johnson’s conduct – whatever it might have been – was forgotten.
A cannon similar to the one carried to Fowltown by
Arbuckle's command is on display at Horseshoe Bend
National Military Park in Alabama.
Lt. Johnson’s mention of his company appears to indicate that Capt. Donoho’s artillery company was present at the Battle of Fowltown, even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the official reports. The unit did have several field guns, the largest of which was a 6-pounder. The deployment of at least one of these guns during the fighting would explain the discovery of a solid shot near Four Mile Creek. The cannonball is too small to date from the Civil War, and there was no other recorded action in the area from which it could date.
The Native American account of the battle was simple. Boleck and Cappachimico wrote – likely through Alexander Arbuthnot – in a letter to Gov. Charles Cameron in the Bahamas that Fowltown had been attacked by American soldiers. “Our Indians, rallying, drove the Americans from the town,” they reported, “but in their exertions had two more people killed.”
Fresh water trickles from a small steephead spring at the
probable site of Fowltown in Decatur County, Georgia.
The chiefs did not report the number of warriors who were wounded in the fighting, but U.S. soldiers reported seeing several fall along the edges of the swamp. Lt. Col. Arbuckle listed his own losses as 1 killed and 2 wounded. The soldier who lost his life at Fowltown was Pvt. Aaron Hughes, a regimental musician. He had joined the army at the age of 15 and served through the War of 1812 without injury. He was reportedly shot while trying to rally the troops by standing on an Indian cabin and playing his fife.
The firefight lasted 15-20 minutes and ended when Neamathla and his men withdrew deeper into the swamp. Arbuckle described what happened next as a “march,” but officers in his command said it was a “retreat.” The soldiers definitely moved quickly from the town and marched up the trail to Burges’s Bluff (Bainbridge):
The detachment consisted of 300 men, under the command of Colonel Arbucle. They were attacked about twelve miles from Fort Scott, by a party of Fowltown and Osouche Indians, supposed to be about one hundred, and had one man killed and two wounded, one dangerously. The Indian loss was supposed to be eight or ten. They captured some cattle during the flight, which were retaken in the towns, lying about eight miles from Fort Scot. – The detachment then retreated four miles and threw up breast works.
Another officer described the battle in similar terms when he wrote to his father from Fort Scott on December 2, 1817:
"Fowl Town Swamp" as drawn by an early surveyor when
the area was still part of the original Early County, Georgia.
I marched from Fort Hawkins on the 15th Nov. and arrived here on the 19th, at night. On the 23d, Col. Arbuckle crossed Flint river with 300 men, for the purpose of destroying an Indian town, about 20 miles off. We arrived in the town about 12 o’clock, next day – at 3, the Indians attacked us, and after an action of about 15 minutes, they retreated into a large swamp which nearly surrounded their town. – The loss cannot be ascertained – Ours, 1 killed, 1 severely and 3 slightly wounded.
The brief account provided by Cappachimico and Boleck (“Bowlegs”) appears to indicate that Neamathla attacked the retreating soldiers somewhere between Fowltown and Burges’s Bluff and recovered some of the stolen cattle. None of the U.S. accounts are known to mention such an encounter, but the beef was vital to the survival of the Tutalosis, and a raid or quick strike to recover some of it makes sense.
- End of Excerpt -
The soldiers either "marched" or "retreated" to Burges's Bluff (present-day Bainbridge), where they started building a new stockade that they named Fort Hughes after the slain musician.
If angered by the unprovoked raid on his town two days earlier, Neamathla was infuriated by the larger strike. Runners went out from Fowltown to call for help, and hundreds of warriors soon began a general movement for the Flint and Apalachicola Rivers from as far away as the Suwannee.
Experience living history camps, military drills, musket and cannon demonstrations, the 19th-century keelboat Aux Arc ("Ozark"), battle reenactments, and more at the annual Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment in Chattahoochee, Florida, on December 7-8, 2019. Learn more at Scott1817.com.
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.
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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 morning of November 21, 1817, was seasonably cold, especially as the soldiers moved down into the broad basin of Fowltown Swamp and Four Mile Creek. The creek flows out of the swamp just over one mile east of the Flint River and then runs in a slightly northwest directly to its confluence with the Flint. The route of the march from Burges’s down to the swamp likely followed a trail shown on the 1819 District Plats of Survey on file at the Georgia Archives. This pathway or “road” ran parallel to the Flint River about halfway between the east bank and today’s Faceville Road (GA 97). [1]
Neamathla (Eneah Emathla)
The primary chief of Fowltown.
Neamathla was not expecting an attack by U.S. troops and no warriors had been placed to guard his town against surprise. This allowed Twiggs to approach the town undetected and begin to form his companies for an enveloping movement:
…Having marched all the night of the 20th I reached the town before day light on the morning of the 21st & posted the troops in order of Battle intending silently to surround it & without blood shed bring to you the chief & warriors, but they fled from the companies of Majr. Montgomery & Cpt. Birch on my right & fired upon my left under Capts. Allison & Bee when they were fired on in return. Discovering my superiority of force they fled to a neighboring swamp. [2]
The exchange of fire between Neamathla’s warriors and the soldiers of Bee’s and Allison’s companies on Twiggs’s right flank was the first of the Seminole Wars. Fighting would continue with an occasional interruption for the next 41 years.
Maj. David E. Twiggs, USA
(As seen 43-years later) Matthew Brady photograph, Library of Congress.
Fowltown had been taken by complete surprise, and the firing on both sides was wild. No soldiers were wounded, and Twiggs reported that the Creeks had lost “but few as they received but one round & fled.” He did not provide estimates of Native American losses in his brief written report of the affair but apparently told Gen. Gaines that the fire of Neamathla’s men “was briskly returned by the detachment, and the Indians put to flight with the loss of four warriors slain – and, as there is reason to believe, many more wounded.” [3]
Gaines wrote to Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson on the day of the attack, informing him of the skirmish and reporting that the village’s casualties included at least one woman:
It is with deep regret I have to add that a woman was accidentally shot with some warriors in the act of forcing their way through our line formed for the purpose of arresting their flight. The unfortunate woman had a blanket fastened round her (as many of the warriors had) which amidst the smoke in which they were enveloped, rendered it impossible, as I am assured by the officers present, to distinguish her from the warriors. [4]
The Native American account of the attack was included in a letter from Cappachimico and Boleck (Bowlegs) to Gov. Charles Cameron in the Bahamas. The document appears to have been written for them by Alexander Arbuthnot and is somewhat garbled. The part that appears to refer to the pre-dawn attack of November 21 begins with a mention of the letter sent to Cappachimico by Gen. Gaines:
Creek Heritage Trail interpretive panel for the Battle of
Fowltown at Chason Memorial Park in Bainbridge, Georgia.
…This letter only appears to have been a prelude to plans determined on by the said General and General Jackson, to bring on troops and settlers, to drive us from our lands; and take possession of them; for, in the end of [November], a party of Americans surrounded Fowl Town during the night, and in the morning began setting fire to it; making the unfortunate inhabitants fly to the swamps, and who in their flight had three persons killed by the fire of the Americans. [5]
The troops remained in Fowltown only until daybreak. Maj. Twiggs reported that they did not destroy the town but left it intact. He did report to Gen. Gaines that a significant quantity of corn was seen in the corncribs of the village and that he and his officers had inspected Neamathla’s home. There, according to the general, they found “a British uniform coat (Scarlet) with a pair of gold Epaulettes, and a certificate signed by a british Captain of Marines.” The certificate noted that Neamathla had always been a “true and faithful friend to the British” and was signed by Capt. Robert White of the Royal Marines. [6]
Twiggs returned to Fort Scott with his battalion on the same day as the skirmish, taking with him little besides a few horses and a few head of cattle. He reported to Gen. Gaines that his men and officers all performed well in what was for many their baptism of fire. [7]
- End of Excerpt -
The first attack did not really rise to the level of a full-fledged battle, but the fighting at Fowltown was far from over and the fiercest encounter was still to come.
Editor's Note: This special series commemorates the opening days of the First Seminole War and provides historical background for the coming Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment in Chattahoochee, Florida. The event is set for December 6-8, 2019, and features living history encampments and demonstrations, exhibits, a mobile museum, battle reenactments, vendors, and more. For more information, please visit Scott1817.com.
References:
[1] District Plat of Survey, Early County, District 20, October 5, 1825 (copied from 1819 plat), Survey Records, Surveyor General, RG 3-3-24, Georgia Archives.
[2] Bvt. Maj. David E. Twiggs to Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines, November 21, 1817, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, Letters Received, National Archives.
[3] Ibid.; Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines to Gov. Peter Early, November 21, 1817, published in the New York Commercial Advertiser, December 15, 1817.
[4] Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines to Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson, November 21, 1817, Jackson Papers, Library of Congress.
[5] Cappiahimico and Bowlegs to Gov. Cameron, n.d., included in The Trials of A. Arbuthnot and R.C. Ambrister, London, 1819: 19-21.
[6] Gaines to Jackson, November 21, 1817.
[7] Gaines to Jackson, November 21, 1817.
Archaeologist Brian Mabelitini (left) and historian Dale Cox
look out at the Flint River from Burges's Bluff from
J.D. Chason Memorial Park in Bainbridge, Georgia.
Note: This article continues a series leading up to the annual Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment at Chattahoochee, Florida. The event is set for December 6-8 and commemorates the first U.S. defeat of the Seminole Wars.
United States troops from the 4th and 7th Infantry Regiments used dugout canoes to cross the chilly Flint River to Burges's Bluff 202 years ago today. The site is recognized today as Bainbridge, Georgia.
The 250-men were on their way to start the first battle of the Seminole Wars. This series of conflicts lasted more than forty years until the very eve of the American War Between the States or Civil War. Thousands of men, women, and children lost their lives, and tens of thousands more were forced west on the Trail of Tears.
A section of the original Fort Scott Road or "Jackson Trail,"
no longer in use, is still visible on an island in Lake Seminole.
The objective of the soldiers, who left a large but still-incomplete frontier stockade called Fort Scott, was Fowltown, a Creek Indian village on the margin of the swamps that surrounded Four Mile Creek south of present-day Bainbridge. Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines was ordered by the Monroe Administration to take and hold the town's chief, Neamathla (Eneah Emathla), as a hostage until his followers agreed to give up their lands to the United States. Please see yesterday's article.
He drafted written orders to Maj. David E. Twiggs for a raid on Fowltown 202 years ago this morning:
The hostile character & Conduct of the Indians of the Fowl Town, settled within our limits, rendering it absolutely necessary that they should be removed, you will proceed to the town with the detachment assigned you, and remove them. You will arrest and bring the chiefs and warriors to this place, but should they oppose you, or attempt to escape, you will in that event treat them as enemies. Your men are to be strictly prohibited, in any event, from firing upon, or otherwise injuring, women and children. [1]
The 7th United States Infantry Living History Association
recreates a march along a section of the old 10 Mile Still Road
during the Scott 1817 event two years ago.
The route of the battalion followed today's 10 Mile Still Road, which follows the original "Jackson Trail" or "Fort Scott Road" from the point it plunges into Lake Seminole until it disappears under the modern development of the city of Bainbridge.
The original path ended on the west bank of the Flint river opposite Burges's Buff, a high plateau where the historic district of downtown Bainbridge exists today.
The bluff takes its name from the late 18th and early 20th-century deerskin trader James Burges. He operated a trading house there in the Lower Creek town of Pucknauhitla, which spread from about Oak City Cemetery on the north to the vicinity of J.D. Chason Memorial Park in the south. The crossing point was just below Chason Park.
Burgess died some 10-15 years before the Fowltown raid, and Pucknauhitla was no longer occupied, but his old crossing was still there, and the old fields and ruins of the houses were still evident.
The Flint River crossing site at Bainbridge, Georgia.
Subsequent reports from Fort Hughes, a small stockade built on the bluff four days later, indicate that the only boat at the crossing was a dugout canoe. The soldiers undoubtedly used this vessel to get across the river, a process that would have been slow and laborious.
Curiously, just such a dugout was found in the river not far away by modern searchers and is on display at the Decatur County Historical Society Museum in Bainbridge. It was made with metal tools, but it is impossible to say whether it is the same canoe.
The day was blustery as temperatures dropped throughout the Southeast. Ice formed in the streets of Charleston, South Carolina, that night as the first cold front of the season swept down through the region. Temperatures had been unseasonably warm all month, but things changed as Twiggs, and his men slowly crossed the Flint River and climbed up Burges's Bluff.
The cold wind was perhaps an omen to what they were about to unleash.
Editor's Note: This series will continue tomorrow with the story of the first U.S. attack on Fowltown and the beginning of the Seminole Wars. To learn more about the upcoming Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment, please visit Scott1817.com.
References:
[1] Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines to Maj. David E. Twiggs, Nov. 20, 1817.
Neamathla (Eneah Emathla)
Primary Chief of Fowltown
Note: As we approach the Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment, which will take place on Dec. 6-8 in Chattahoochee, Florida, I will post articles that give you information about the significance of that encounter. DC
The effective strengths of the Fourth and Seventh Infantry Regiments of the U.S. Army began arriving at Fort Scott on today's Lake Seminole in Southwest Georgia 202 years ago today. The soldiers did not know it, but they were coming to start a war.
Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines, a hero of the War of 1812, commanded the march, which started at Camp or Fort Montgomery in the Tensaw settlement of what is now Alabama. He was under orders from the administration of President James Monroe to kidnap the Red Stick Creek chief Neamathla (Eneah Emathla) and some of his leading men.
Neamathla was the principal chief of Fowltown, a Lower Creek village that had recently resettled on the swamps of Four Mile Creek about 3-4 miles south of present-day Bainbridge, Georgia. He and his followers sided with the Prophet Josiah Francis during the Creek War of 1813-1814 but were defeated at the Battle of Uchee Creek and forced to evacuate to the Florida borderlands.
Rearmed by the British during the closing months of the War of 1812, they refused to evacuate their lands as required by the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which seized more than 22 million acres from the Creeks. Neamathla had not signed that document. "The land is mine," he told Maj. David E. Twiggs of the U.S. Army that summer, "I am directed by the Powers Above to defend it."
Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines, USA
Photographed later in life. National Archives.
Angered by the chief's "defiance," the powers in Washington, DC, instructed Gen. Gaines to hold the chief as a hostage until his followers left the Fort Jackson Treaty lands. The general started his troops for Fort Scott.
Hindsight shows that everyone involved in the U.S. side of the dispute - from subordinate officers at the fort on the Flint to the highest officials in the Monroe Administration - underestimated Neamathla. The fighting that would take place at Fowltown and on the Apalachicola River over the next eleven days would show by how much.
Perhaps the best account of the chief was written by the famed author Washington Irving. Remembered today for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and other works, Irving interviewed Florida Gov. William P. Duval about his later interactions with the chief. Duval met Neamathla as lands were being selected for Florida’s capital city of Tallahassee:
…He was a remarkable man; upward of sixty years of age, about six feet high, with a fine eye, and a strongly-marked countenance, over which he possessed great command. His hatred of white men appeared to be mixed with contempt: on the common people, he looked down with infinite scorn. He seemed unwilling to acknowledge any superiority of rank or dignity in Governor Duval, claiming to associate with him on terms of equality as two great chieftains.[i]
Washington Irving, the noted American
writer who penned a fascinating account
of Neamathla. Library of Congress.
Irving’s statement that the chief was unwilling to acknowledge the superiority of the white governor is powerful. It shows that Neamathla regarded himself as the equal of any white leader. He also left no doubt about his feelings concerning the U.S. occupation of his lands:
…This country belongs to the red man; and if I had the number of warriors at my command that this nation once had, I would not leave a white man on my lands. I would exterminate the whole. I can say this to you, for you can understand me: you are a man; but I would not say it to your people. They’d cry out I was a savage, and would take my life. They cannot appreciate the feelings of a man that loves his country.[ii]
Duval was attempting to arrange the movement of Neamathla and his followers from a village site at Tallahassee to a new reservation established for them near the Ochlockonee River in Gadsden County, Florida. The chief’s voice grew louder and louder until it could be heard over the entire village as he made clear that he was willing to fight to the death to defend the lands of his people:
…He held in his hand a long knife, with which he had been rasping tobacco; this he kept flourishing backward and forward, as he talked, by way of giving effect to his words, brandishing it at times within an inch of the governor’s throat. He concluded his tirade by repeating, that the country belonged to the red men, and that sooner than give it up, his bones and the bones of his people should bleach upon its soil.[iii]
Pensacola's Jacksonian Guard demonstrates the uniforms,
weapons and musical instruments of the 4th and 7th
Regiments. The unit will participate in the Scott 1817
Reenactment at Chattahoochee, FL on Dec. 6-8, 2019.
Neamathla eventually did put his words into action. He never occupied the tiny reservation established for him in Florida but instead moved up the Chattahoochee River to the surviving part of the Creek Nation. There he became the principal chief of Hitchiti and emerged as one of the principal leaders in the Creek War of 1836.
Captured by U.S. and Alabama militia troops, he was placed in chains and marched west on the Trail of Tears. An officer who saw him wrote that the chief was over 80 years old but never uttered a complaint despite the weight of his chains. He reached what is now Oklahoma during the brutal winter of 1836-1837. One of the final mentions of him to appear in U.S. Army records is a plea for his people to receive the blankets that they had been promised. They were suffering in the snow and ice and had nothing with which to cover themselves.
Editor's Note: The events of November 1817 are commemorated by the annual Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment at Chattahoochee, Florida. This year's event is scheduled for December 6-8 and will feature an Education Day for school and home school students on Friday, December 6, followed by public days on Saturday and Sunday, December 7 and 8. Activities take place at River Landing Park and feature living history encampments, demonstrations, exhibits, a mobile museum, the authentic 19th-century replica keelboat Aux Arc ("Ozark"), and battle reenactments on both Saturday and Sunday. All activities are free to the public.
For more information, please visit https://scott1817.com. This video will give you a quick 30-second preview:
[i] Washington Irving, “Conspiracy of Neamathla” in The Works of Washington Irving, Author’s Revised Edition, Volume XVI, Wolfert's Roost, New York, G.P. Putnam, 1863, page 297.
Massive Luminary Service by the river at Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle
by Dale Cox
A luminary service underway at the site of Fort Hughes in
J.D. Chason Memorial Park in Bainbridge, Georgia, in 2017.
Four hundred candle-lit luminaries will reflect off the waters of the Apalachicola River on the night of December 7, 2019. They will honor the men, women, and children of both sides who died in events surrounding the First Seminole War and the destruction of the "Negro Fort" or Fort at Prospect Bluff.
The memorial and illumination is part of the Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment. The annual event takes place this year at River Landing Park in Chattahoochee, Florida, on December 6, 7, and 8. The luminary service begins at 6:30 p.m. Eastern/5:30 p.m. Central, and the public is encouraged to attend.
The special event will include a 19th-century military ceremony by the Jacksonian Guard from Pensacola, Florida, followed by a Native American and Maroon (Black Seminole) observance organized by the Lower Chattahoochee Band of Yuchi Indians living history unit. Both groups are participating in this year's reenactments of the Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle.
The authentic keelboat Aux Arc ("Ozark") will visit from
Arkansas to recreate the actual boat attacked in 1817 at what
is now River Landing Park in Chattahoochee, Florida.
That encounter took place at the site of today's River Landing Park on November 30, 1817, and the luminaries will be lit on the actual battlefield. The Scott Battle took place when several hundred Red Stick Creek, Miccosukee, Seminole, Yuchi, and Maroon (Black Seminole) warriors attacked a U.S. Army keelboat on its way up the Apalachicola River. The Native Americans were furious because soldiers had attacked the Lower Creek village of Fowltown, killing several men and women and igniting the First Seminole War.
The battle ended with the deaths of 34 U.S. soldiers, 6 women, 4 children, and an unknown number of Native American warriors. It led President James Monroe to order Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson's 1818 invasion of Spanish Florida and ultimately was the key factor in the cession of Florida from Spain to the United States.
The luminary service promises to be a beautiful and moving event that memorializes two crucial and connected parts of history. Approximately 136 men, women, and children lost their lives in the First Seminole War, and 136 of the luminaries will honor them.
Reenactors from the 7th Infantry Living History Association
conduct a memorial ceremony at Camp Recovery, site of a
hospital encampment during the 200th-anniversary event.
Two hundred seventy luminaries will memorialize the 270 men, women, and children killed on the lower Apalachicola River when the U.S. military destroyed the Fort at Prospect Bluff or Negro Fort on July 27, 1816. The remaining four luminaries honor the lives of four U.S. sailors who died in that campaign.
It will be the first time that all of the people who died in the fighting along and near the Apalachicola River from 1816 to 1819 will be remembered in a single memorial service. The luminaries will honor men, women, and children without regard to age, race, sex, or religious belief.
The sight of so many luminaries reflecting off the silent waters of the Apalachicola River should be unforgettable. The public is encouraged to attend.
River Landing Park is located on River Landing Road, Chattahoochee, Florida. Living history events will take place Saturday, December 7, and Sunday, December 8, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern/8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Central. Battle reenactments are scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Eastern/11:30 a.m. Central on Saturday, December 7, and 2 p.m. Eastern/1 p.m. Central on Sunday, December 8.
Unforgettable experiences await at Living History event!
by Rachael Conrad
Students learn about the lives of Creek Indian women.
An incredible array of elementary, middle, high, and home school groups will flood the banks of the Apalachicola River on Friday, December 6, for Education Day at the Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment.
The annual event commemorates the First Seminole War of 1817-1818 and takes place this year at historic River Landing Park in Chattahoochee, Florida. The park is the site of the first U.S. defeat of the Seminole Wars and is a stop on Florida's official Seminole Wars Trail.
Education Day provides a remarkable opportunity for students to learn about life in the region during the days when the border dividing Florida, Georgia, and Alabama was still a battleground of empires. What is now Florida was then a colony of Spain. Southwest Georgia and Southeast Alabama were claimed by the United States. Still, the claims of both nations intruded on those of the Creek (Muscogee), Miccosukee, Seminole, and other Native American nations.
The Creek Indian warrior Blue Heron instructs a group of
students in the traditional Native American stickball game.
Students will learn about these turbulent days by meeting an array of individuals who "come through time" to speak to them and demonstrate weapons, crafts, food, games, and more.
They will visit the camps of Creek and Seminole Indians, meet Black Seminole warriors, play the authentic Creek/Seminole stickball game, and even try their hand at carefully-instructed tomahawk throwing. Frontier hunters and their families will discuss their lives and survival, demonstrate the firing of their muskets and long rifles, and show the items they used each day.
The Creek Prophet Josiah Francis will tell the students about the Scott battle and what took place when the fighting raged. A U.S. Army major from 1817 will describe the scene from his perspective. Then there will be an opportunity to step aboard the authentic 38-foot keelboat Aux Arc (Ozark) to see how people once traveled on the Apalachicola River. In a highlight of the day for many guests, the boat will fire off its cannon in fiery displays of sight and sound.
The 38-foot keelboat Aux Arc (pronounced "Ozark) will
be in the Apalachicola River to show students how people
and cargo traveled up and down from the Gulf 200 years ago.
A variety of exhibits on history, archaeology, nature, outdoor activities, animals, and more will also be available for them to explore. Students will even get a lesson in candle-making before they leave!
Historian and author Dale Cox conceived the annual Seminole War Battle reenactment as a way to bring a forgotten part of area history back to life. His dream included a day to help schools immerse students in the lives of historical figures in a way far more real than books or lectures. That dream will be realized on December 6.
"I am thrilled that so many schools and classes have committed to come and be part of this fantastic free event," he said. "These students are going to learn things about our ancestors in a few short hours that they will never forget."
The Maroon or Black Seminole leader Abraham will come
back to life after 200 years to teach students about his role
in the Seminole War battle fought at River Landing Park.
Cox said that he really likes the fact that the Scott 1817 event lets students learn about people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. "There were Creek, Miccosukee, and Seminole Indians fighting to preserve their homes and lands," he continued. "You had Maroons - escaped slaves that many of the students have never heard of - taking up arms alongside the Native Americans and fighting for their own freedom. United States soldiers, frontier people, Spanish soldiers and settlers, people from so many different backgrounds, all coming together at once in this small corner of the world."
More than 500 students from Jackson County alone will be coming across the river to enjoy the event, and there will be many from other locations as well.
Education Day will be followed by the main public days on Saturday and Sunday (December 7 & 8). Everyone is encouraged to come out and enjoy days of living history encampments, demonstrations, pageantry, exhibits, musket and cannon firings, food, vendors, and battle reenactments. The hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Central).
Noted Pensacola unit to represent U.S. troops at Scott 1817 event!
by Dale Cox
Soldiers of the Jacksonian Guard fire a salute during a Colors
Ceremony at Plaza Ferdinand in Pensacola. The celebrated
unit is coming to this year's Scott 1817 Seminole War event.
Pensacola's acclaimed Jacksonian Guard will be on hand as history comes to life at Chattahoochee's River Landing Park on December 6-8, 2019!
As promised in the wake of Hurricane Michael, the annual Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle reenactment and living history event is coming back to River Landing Park this year. Activities begin on Friday with education day for students from schools and home school organizations across the region Saturday and Sunday feature a wide range of activities for the whole family.
The Jacksonian Guard was established in 2016 to reenact soldiers of the United States and Spain during Florida's last days as a Spanish colony. This was the time of the First Seminole War (1817-1818) when the Scott Battle of 1817 was fought at the site of today's River Landing Park in Chattahoochee.
Drummers and fifers of the Jacksonian Guard portray the
youthful composition of the U.S. Army in 1817-1821.
Sponsored by Visit Pensacola and the University of West Florida Historic Trust, the Jacksonian Guard includes soldiers, fifers, and drummers who perform a Colors Ceremony on the third Saturday of every month in Plaza Ferdinand in Downtown Pensacola. That is where the actual change of flags took place on July 17, 1821, marking the official transfer of West Florida from Spain to the United States.
The Jacksonian Guard will be at River Landing Park on Saturday, December 7, and Sunday, December 8, this year, to provide a variety of demonstrations including military salutes, the manual of arms, fife and drum music, musket firing demonstrations. The soldiers will even introduce visitors to dance styles of the early 1800s! They will also take part in a unique memorial service for the soldiers and civilians, Native Americans, and Maroons (Black Seminoles) who lost their lives in the Scott battle on Saturday night, December 7, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern/5:30 p.m. Central.
Soldiers of the Jacksonian Guards demonstrate arms and
uniforms of the U.S. Army in 1817-1821.
The soldiers of the Jacksonian Guard will board the authentic 19th-century replica keelboat Aux Arc ("Ozark") on Saturday and Sunday for the reenactments of the Scott battle. They will represent the soldiers of the 4th and 7th U.S. Infantry Regiments who fought under Lt. Richard W. Scott on November 30, 1817, in the first U.S. defeat of the Seminole Wars. The battle ultimately led to Spain's surrender of Florida to the United States.
The Jacksonian Guard's appearance is made possible by a travel grant from Two Egg TV.
This year's battle reenactments will take place at 12 noon Eastern/11 a.m. Central on Saturday and 2 p.m. Eastern/1 p.m. Central on Sunday (December 7 & 8).
The Scott 1817 event will take place daily from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. Eastern (8 a.m. until 2 p.m. Central) on Friday through Sunday, December 6, 7, and 8, 2019.
Friday is education day, with hundreds of school students from throughout the area scheduled to attend. Saturday and Sunday are the main public days, and families from throughout the region are encouraged to attend. All events are family-friendly. This is an alcohol-free event. There will be food concessions, vendors, exhibits, and much more for families to enjoy.
The Scott 1817 event is free to attend. Donations are welcome and encouraged!
This year's event is sponsored in part by the Focus Foundation and Two Egg TV with support from Chattahoochee Main Street and the City of Chattahoochee.
A bizarre series of events along Buena Vista Slough (then called Sugar Mill Creek) terrified residents in Florida's Chattahoochee River valley more than 140 years ago.
October 1877 was a time of growing optimism in eastern Jackson County. The violence and strife of Reconstruction were finally over, the local economy was improving, and riverboat traffic was once again booming on the Chattahoochee River. Sugar Mill Creek flowed from a collection of small springs past the remains of the already ruined mill that gave the stream its name to join the river near today's Parramore Landing.
The lands along its low ridges were well-suited for the production of cotton, corn, tobacco, and other crops, and the harvest was good that fall. Most of the farms were small, and the families who settled near the creek in the years after the Civil War included whites, blacks, and Native Americans. All worked the land or cut timber to make their livings.
Things seemed peaceful as everyone worked and waited for the first cold snap of winter and "hog killing" time. No one, however, expected what happened next:
Buena Vista Slough now covers the original Sugar Mill Creek.
A Witch! The people about Sugar Mill creek in east Jackson are all alarmed about a witching at Godwin's spring on Thursday night last. Highsmith, an elderly Negro man, says his family was asleep by the fire when an unseen witch started to pelt his cabin with stones and brickbats. Thinking it was irreverent pranksters or Republicans he took up his shotgun and rushed into the yard only to witness a piece of lime rock rise from the ground and dash itself against his chimney. - Marianna Courier, October 1877.
Godwin's Spring, where the incident supposedly took place, is now underwater at Godwin Lake, the head of the slough that extends north from Buena Vista Landing on the backwaters of Lake Seminole. The spring and the small creek that it and a few other springs headed was inundated when the Jim Woodruff Dam was completed in 1958.
Buena Vista Landing as seen from the slough.
Stories of witches or other unseen forces that threw rocks, bricks, and other objects against the sides of houses were relatively common in the 19th century. The best-documented case was the Edgefield Ghost in South Carolina, but the best-known was, without doubt, the Bell Witch of Tennessee.
People in that day usually blamed such instances on witches, although today they are often said to be the result of "poltergeist" activity.
More from the Witch! A witch seems quite begrudged with the people above Bellview on Sugar Mill creek. Brickbats, rocks, crockery and tools fly about. Dogs howl without ceasing. Bells sound at midnight. The rattle of dragging chains distinctly heard. Birds that speak. A creature like a dog with the head of a cat! If but half the stories are true then the good citizens of that vicinity had best revisit the methods of Cotton Mather of old Salem! - Marianna Courier, October 1877
The two brief articles are the only known written accounts of the paranormal "outbreak" that shook the Buena Vista area of eastern Jackson County in 1877. Earlier generations had vague memories of the incidents and told of how their parents and grandparents met for weekend-long brush arbor "preachings" and "camp meetings."
Like the Edgefield and Bell Witchings of earlier generations, this one also slowly faded away.
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