[legendsport]

PART IV - Jackson Heads South

MARCH 12, 1818, FORT SCOTT, GEORGIA - Major General Andrew Jackson was in a foul mood. He stomped across the parade ground towards his office, his orderly in his wake waving papers.

"Sir, you must sign this order so it can be sent to the War Department!" the orderly cried as he tried to keep up with the general. Jackson pointedly ignored the man and entered his office.

Jackson was angry because his army had been due to leave the fort a week earlier, but the men hadn't been ready. The orders to cross into Spanish territory had arrived from Washington in late February. Jackson was impatient; he had little use for what he considered "dawdling" and his army - a mixed bag that included 800 U.S. Army regulars, 1,000 Tennessee volunteers, 1,400 Georgia volunteers and around 1,400 friendly Creek warriors - was having trouble coming together as a cohesive force.

"Mister Stinson! You will cease and desist!" Jackson shouted as the orderly followed him into the office. "I shall sign the damned paper when I am good and ready!" He snatched the page from the shaken orderly's hand and stomped to his desk. With a contemptuous look, he inked his pen, signed and almost threw the sheet at the orderly. "Out!" he barked.

Stinson had been gone just a moment when Colonel Edmund Gaines entered Jackson's office.

"General, the men will be ready to leave at dawn."

Jackson grinned. "Well done Edmund!"

Gaines smiled in return. "It was not easy. Those damned Creeks are a nuisance. And getting the regulars to work with the militia, well..."

Jackson frowned again. "They'll work together or I'll have 'em all horse whipped!" he snapped.

Gaines raised a hand to calm the general. "They'll be fine. We'll show those damned Seminoles and their Spaniard backers what's what."

Jackson rose and slapped Gaines on the shoulder. "By the Eternal, that's the spirit, Edmund!"

And Gaines was as good as his word. The next morning, Jackson's army left Fort Scott and marched down the Apalachicola River. The established a fort, which Jackson named Gadsden as a forward base. Crossing into Spanish territory, Jackson's army burned the Indian town of Tallahassee on March 31 and captured another town, Miccosukee, the following day. In the process, 300 Indian homes were destroyed. Jackson turned south and reached St. Mark's on April 6 and immediately seized the Spanish fort there.

In St. Marks found Alexander George Arbuthnot, a Scottish trader working out of the Bahamas. He traded with the Indians in Florida and had written letters to British and American officials on behalf of the Indians. He was known to be selling guns to the Indians and to be preparing them for war. Two Indian leaders, Josiah Francis, a Red Stick Creek, and Homathlemico, a Seminole, had been captured when they had gone out to an American ship flying the British Union Flag that had anchored off of St. Marks as a decoy. As soon as Jackson arrived at St. Marks, the two Indians were brought ashore and hanged. Arbuthnot was put in custody.

Jackson left St. Marks to attack villages along the Suwannee River, which were occupied primarily by former slaves released as a result of the Treaty of Ghent. On April 12, the army found a Red Stick village on Econfina River. Close to 40 Red Sticks were killed, and about 100 women and children were captured. Around this time, Robert Ambrister, a former Royal Marine and self-appointed British "agent", was captured by Jackson's army. Having destroyed the major Seminole and black villages, Jackson declared victory and sent the Georgia Militia and the Lower Creeks home. Jackson and the remaining army then returned to St. Marks.

At St. Marks a military tribunal was convened, and Ambrister and Arbuthnot were charged with aiding the Seminoles, inciting them to war and leading them against the United States. Ambrister threw himself on the mercy of the court, while Arbuthnot maintained his innocence, saying that he had only been engaged in legal trade. The tribunal sentenced both men to death but then relented and changed Ambrister's sentence to fifty lashes and a year at hard labor. Jackson, however, reinstated Ambrister's death penalty. Ambrister was executed by a firing squad on April 29, 1818. Arbuthnot was hanged from the yardarm of his own ship.

Jackson left a garrison at St. Marks and returned to Ft. Gadsden. Jackson had first reported that all was peaceful and that he would be returning to Nashville, Tennessee. He later reported that Indians were gathering and being supplied by the Spanish, and he left Fort Gadsden with 1,000 men on May 7, headed for Pensacola. The governor of West Florida protested that most of the Indians at Pensacola were women and children and that the men were unarmed, but Jackson did not stop. When Jackson reached Pensacola on May 23, the governor and the 175-man Spanish garrison retreated to Fort Barrancas, leaving the city of Pensacola to Jackson. The two sides exchanged cannon fire for a couple of days, and then the Spanish surrendered Fort Barrancas on May 28. Jackson left Col. William King as military governor of West Florida and went home.

The aftermath of Jackson's actions nearly caused another war. The British were angered that two of their citizens had been seized by Jackson - on Spanish soil - and executed. The Spanish were angered that the Americans had invaded Florida. In London, the Duke of Wellington opined that it would be better for cooler heads to prevail as another war would not benefit the British nation (rightly noting that after decades of war with the French and then the Americans, the British people wanted a period of peace). The Spanish protested to the U.S. government, which responded by apologizing - and then offering to purchase Florida.

In December of 1818, the Spanish government agreed to sell both Western and Eastern Florida to the United States for $10 million.