Second Seminole War - The Army Retreats, Governor Call Tries His Hand

The Army Retreats, Governor Call Tries His Hand

April 1836 did not go well for the Army. Seminoles attacked a number of forts, including Camp Cooper in the Cove, Fort Alabama on the Hillsborough River north of Fort Brooke, Fort Barnwell near Volusia, and Fort Drane itself. The Seminoles also burned the sugar works on Clinch's plantation. After that, Clinch resigned his commission and left the territory. Fort Alabama was abandoned in late April. In late May, Fort King was also abandoned. In June the soldiers in a blockhouse on the Withlacoochee were rescued after being besieged by the Seminoles for 48 days. On July 23, 1836, Seminoles attacked the Cape Florida lighthouse, severely wounding the assistant keeper in charge and killing his assistant, and burning the lighthouse. The lighthouse was not repaired until 1846. Fort Drane was abandoned in July because of illness, with five out of seven officers and 140 men on the sick list. The Army was suffering terribly from illness; at the time summer in Florida was called the sickly season. By the end of August, Fort Defiance, on the edge of the Alachua Prairie, was also abandoned. Seeing that the war promised to be long and expensive, Congress appropriated another US$1.5 million, and allowed volunteers to enlist for up to a year.

Richard Keith Call, who had led the Florida volunteers as a Brig. Gen. when Clinch marched on the Cove of the Withlacoochee in December, had been appointed Governor of the Territory of Florida on March 16, 1836. Governor Call proposed a summer campaign using militias and volunteers instead of regular Army troops. The War Department agreed to this proposal, but delays in preparations meant the campaign did not start until the end of September. Call also intended to attack the Cove of the Withlacoochee. He sent most of his supplies down the west coast of the peninsula and up the Withlacoochee to set up a supply base. With the main body of his men he marched to the now abandoned Fort Drane, and then on to the Withlacoochee, which they reached on October 13. The Withlacoochee was flooding and could not be forded. The army could not make rafts for a crossing because they had not brought any axes with them. In addition, Seminoles on the other side of the river were shooting at any soldier who showed himself along the river. Call then turned west along the north bank of the river to reach the supply depot. However, the steamer bringing the supplies had sunk in the lower part of the river, and the supply depot was far downstream from where Call was expecting it. Out of food, Call led his men back to Fort Drane, another failed expedition against the Cove.

In mid-November Call tried again. His forces made it across the Withlacoochee this time, but found the Cove abandoned. Call divided his forces, and proceeded up the river (south) on both sides. On November 17 Seminoles were routed from a large camp. There was another battle the next day, and the Seminoles were assumed to be headed for the Wahoo Swamp. Call waited to bring the other column across the river, then entered the Wahoo Swamp on November 21. The Seminoles resisted the advance in the Battle of Wahoo Swamp, as their families were close by, but had to retreat across a stream. Major David Moniac, a mix-blooded Creek who was the first Native American to graduate from West Point, tried to determine how deep the stream was, but was shot and killed by the Seminoles.

Faced with trying to cross a stream of unknown depth under hostile fire, and with supplies again running short, Call withdrew and led his men to Volusia. On December 9 Call was relieved of command and replaced by Maj. Gen. Thomas Jesup, who took the troops back to Fort Brooke. The enlistments of the volunteers were up at the end of December and they went home.

Read more about this topic:  Second Seminole War

Famous quotes containing the words army, governor, call and/or hand:

    That’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)

    Three years ago, also, when the Sims tragedy was acted, I said to myself, There is such an officer, if not such a man, as the Governor of Massachusetts,—what has he been about the last fortnight? Has he had as much as he could do to keep on the fence during this moral earthquake?... He could at least have resigned himself into fame.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    We call it a Society; and go about professing openly the totalest separation, isolation. Our life is not a mutual helpfulness; but rather, cloaked under due laws-of-war, named “fair competition” and so forth, it is a mutual hostility.
    Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)

    I ... would rather be in dependance on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation upon earth, or than on no nation. But I am one of those too who rather than submit to the right of legislating for us assumed by the British parliament, and which late experience has shewn they will so cruelly exercise, would lend my hand to sink the whole island in the ocean.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)