CHAPTER XIV.
SIEGE OF ST. AUGUSTINE, BY OGLETHORPE--1732-1740
Difficulties existed for many years subsequently between the Spanish and English settlements. In 1732, Oglethorpe planted his colony in Georgia, and extended his settlements along the coast towards Florida, claiming and occupying the country up to the margin of the St. Johns, and established a post at St. George Island. This was deemed an invasion of the territory of Spain; and the post was attacked unfairly, as the English say, and some of their men murdered. Oglethorpe, upon this, acting under the instructions of the home government, commenced hostilities by arranging a joint attack of the forces of South Carolina and Georgia, with a view to the entire conquest of Florida.
The instructions of the king of England to Oglethorpe, were, that he should make a naval and land attack upon St. Augustine; "and if it shall please God to give you success, you are either to demolish the fort and bastions, or put a garrison in it, in case you shall have men enough for that purpose; which last, it is thought, will be the best way to prevent the Spaniards from endeavoring to retake and settle the said place again, at any time hereafter."[28]
Don Manuel Monteano was then governor of Florida, and in command of the garrison. The city and castle were previously in a poor condition to withstand an attack from a well-prepared foe; and on the 11th November, 1737, Governor Monteano writes to the governor-general of Cuba, that "the fort of this place is its only defense; it has no casemates for the shelter of the men, nor the necessary elevation to the counter-scarp, nor covert ways, nor ravelins to the curtains, nor other exterior works that could give time for a long defense; but it is thus naked outside, as it is without soul within, for there are no cannon that could be fired twenty-four hours, and though there were, artillery-men to manage them are wanting."
Under the superintendence of an able officer of engineers, Don Antonio de Arredondo, the works were put in order; the ramparts were heightened and casemated; a covered way was made, by planting and embanking four thousand stakes; bomb-proof vaults were constructed, and entrenchments thrown up around the town, protected by ten salient angles, many of which are still visible. The garrison of the town was about seven hundred and forty soldiers, according to Governor Monteano's return of troops. On the 25th March, 1740, the total population of St. Augustine, of all classes, was two thousand one hundred and forty-three.
Previous to his attack upon the place, General Oglethorpe obtained the following information from prisoners whom he took at the outposts. He says: "They agree that there are fifty pieces of cannon in the castle at St. Augustine, several of which are of brass, from twelve to forty-eight pounds. It has four bastions. The walls are of stone, and casemated. The internal square is sixty yards. The ditch is forty feet wide, and twelve feet deep, six of which is sometimes filled with water. The counterscarp is faced with stone. They have lately made a covered way. The town is fortified with an entrenchment, salient angles and redoubts, which inclose about half a mile in length, and a quarter of a mile in width. The inhabitants and garrison, men, women and children, amount to above two thousand five hundred. For the garrison, the king pays eight companies, sent from Spain two years since for the invasion of Georgia; upon establishment fifty-three men each, three companies of foot and one of artillery, of the old garrison, and one troop of horse one hundred each upon establishment; of these, one hundred are at St. Marks, ten days' march from St. Augustine; upon the Gulf of Mexico, one hundred are disposed in several small forts."
Of these out-posts, there were two, one on each side of the river St. Johns--at Picolata and immediately opposite--and at Diego. The purpose of the forts at Picolata was to guard the passage of the river, and to keep open the communication with St. Marks and Pensacola; and when threatened with the invasion of Oglethorpe, messengers were dispatched to the governor of Pensacola for aid, and also to Mexico by the same route. The fort at Diego was but a small work, erected by Don Diego de Spinosa, upon his own estate; and the remains of it, with one or two cannon, are still visible. Fort Moosa, was an out-post at the place now known by that name, on the North River, about two miles north of St. Augustine. A fortified line, a considerable portion of which may now be traced, extended across from the stockades on the St. Sebastian to Fort Moosa. Communication by a tide-creek existed through the marshes, between the castle at St. Augustine and Fort Moosa.
Oglethorpe first attacked the two forts at Picolata, one of which, called Fort Poppa, or St. Francis de Poppa, was a place of some strength. Its remains still exist, about one-fourth of a mile north of the termination of the Bellamy Road, its earthworks being still strongly marked.
After a slight resistance, both forts fell into his hands, much to the annoyance of Governor Monteano. Oglethorpe speaks of Fort Francis as being of much importance, "as commanding the passes from St. Augustine to Mexico, and into the country of the Creek Indians, and also being upon the ferry, where the troops which come from St. Augustine must pass." He found in it, one mortar piece, two carriages, three small guns, ammunition, one hundred and fifty shells, and fifty glass bottles full of gunpowder, with fuses--a somewhat novel missile of war.
The English general's plan of operation was, that the crews and troops upon the vessels should land, and throw up batteries upon Anastasia Island, from thence bombarding the town; while he himself designed to lead the attack on the land side. Having arrived in position, he gave the signal of attack to the fleet, by sending up a rocket; but no response came from the vessels, and he had the mortification of being obliged to withdraw his troops. The troops were unable to effect a landing from the vessels, in consequence of a number of armed Spanish galleys having been drawn up inside the bar; so that no landing could be made except under a severe fire, while the galleys were protected from an attack by the ships, in consequence of the shoal water.
He then prepared to reduce the town by a regular siege, with a strict blockade by sea. He hoped, by driving the inhabitants into the castle, so to encumber the governor with useless mouths, as to reduce him to the necessity of a surrender, to avoid starvation. The town was placed under the range of his heavy artillery and mortars, and soon became untenable, forcing the citizens generally to seek the shelter of the fort.
Col. Vanderduysen was posted at Point Quartel; and others of the troops upon Anastasia Island, and the north beach. Three batteries were erected: one on Anastasia Island, called the Poza, which consisted of four eighteen-pounders and one nine-pounder; one on the point of the wood of the island, mounting two eighteen-pounders. The remains of the Peza battery are still to be seen, almost as distinctly marked as on the day of its creation. Four mortars and forty cohorns were employed in the siege.
The siege began on the 12th June; and on the 25th June a night sortie was made from the castle against a portion of the troops under command of Col. Palmer, who were encamped at Fort Moosa, including a company of Scotch Highlanders, numbering eighty-five men, under their chief, Capt. McIntosh, all equipped in Highland dress. This attack was entirely successful, and the English sustained a severe loss, their colonel being killed, with twenty Highlanders, twenty-seven soldiers, and a number of Indians.
This affair at Fort Moosa has generally been considered as a surprise, and its disastrous results as the consequence of carelessness and disobedience of the orders of Oglethorpe. Captain McIntosh, the leader of the Highlanders, was taken prisoner, and finally transferred to Spain. From his prison at St. Sebastian, under date of 20th June, 1741, he gives the following account of the matter:--
"I listed seventy men, all in Highland dress, and marched to the siege, and was ordered to scout nigh St. Augustine and molest the enemy, while the general and the rest of his little army went to an island where we could have no succor of them. I punctually obeyed my orders, until seven hundred Spaniards sallied out from the garrison, an hour before daylight. _They did not surprise us_, for we were all under arms, ready to receive them, which we did briskly, keeping a constant firing for a quarter of an hour, when they prest on with numbers; was obliged to take our swords until the most of us were shot and cut to pieces. You are to observe we had but eighty men; and the engagement was in view of the rest of our army, but they could not come to our assistance, by being in the foresaid island, under the enemy's guns. They had twenty prisoners, a few got off, the rest killed; as we were well informed by some of themselves, they had three hundred killed on the spot,[29] besides several wounded. We were all stripped naked of clothes, brought to St. Augustine, where we remained three months in close confinement."[30]
This officer was Capt. John McIntosh; and his son, Brig. Gen. McIntosh, then a youth of fourteen, was present in the engagement, and escaped without injury. The family of the McIntoshes have always been conspicuous in the history of Georgia.
The large number of persons collected within the walls of the castle, and under the protection of its battlements, soon gave rise to serious apprehensions on the part of the besieged, of being reduced by starvation to the necessity of a speedy surrender. The batteries of Oglethorpe were planted at so great a distance that he could produce but little effect by his shot or shells upon the castle, although he rendered the city itself untenable. The heat of the season and the exposure, to which the Provincial militia were unaccustomed, soon produced considerable sickness and discouragement in the invading force, and affected Oglethorpe himself.
The Spanish governor sent most urgent messages to the governor of the island of Cuba, which were transmitted by runners along the coast, and thence by small vessels across to Havana. In one of these letters he says, "My greatest anxiety is for provisions; and if they do not come, there is no doubt of our dying by the hands of hunger." In another, he says, "I assure your Lordship, that it is impossible to express the confusion of the place; for we have no protection except the fort, and all the rest is open field. The families have abandoned their houses, and come to put themselves under the guns, which is pitiable; though nothing gives me anxiety but the want of provisions; and if your Lordship for want of competent force cannot send relief, we all must perish."[31]
With the exception of the Fort Moosa affair, the hostilities were confined to the exchange of shots between the castle and the batteries. Considerable discrepancy exists between the Spanish and English accounts, as to the period when the garrison was relieved: it was the communication of the fact of relief having been received, which formed the ostensible ground of abandoning the siege by Oglethorpe; but the Spanish governor asserts that these provision vessels did not arrive until the siege was raised. The real fact, I am inclined to think, is that the provision vessels arrived at Mosquito, a harbor sixty miles below, where they were to await orders from Gov. Monteano, as to the mode of getting discharged,[32] and that the information of their arrival, being known at St. Augustine, was communicated to the English, and thus induced their raising the siege; in fact, the hope of starving out the garrison was the only hope left to Oglethorpe; his strength was insufficient for an assault, and his means inadequate to reduce the castle, which was well manned and well provided with means of defense.
It was in truth a hopeless task, under the circumstances, for Oglethorpe to persevere; and it is no impeachment of his courage or his generalship, that he was unable to take a fortress of really very respectable strength.
The siege continued from the 13th June to the 20th July, a period of thirty-eight days. The bombardment was kept up twenty days, but owing to the lightness of the guns and the long range, but little effect was produced on the strong walls of the castle. Its spongy, infrangible walls received the balls from the batteries like a cotton bale, or sand battery, almost without making an impression; this may be seen on examination, since the marks remain to this day, as they were left at the end of the siege, one hundred and seventeen years ago.
The prosecution of the siege having become impracticable, preparations were made for retiring; and Oglethorpe, as a pardonable and characteristic protest against the assumption of his acting from any coercion, with drums beating and banners displayed, crossed over to the main land, and marched in full view of the castle, to his encampment three miles distant, situated probably at the point now known as Pass Navarro.
Great credit and respect have been deservedly awarded to Governor Monteano, for the courage, skill, and perseverance with which he sustained the siege.
It is well known that the English general had, in a few months, an ample opportunity of showing to his opponent that his skill in defending his own territory under the most disadvantageous circumstances, was equal to that of the accomplished Monteano himself. The defense of Frederica, and signal defeat of the Spanish forces at Fort Simons, will ever challenge for Oglethorpe the highest credit for the most sterling qualities of a good general and a great man.
Two years subsequently, Oglethorpe again advanced into Florida, appeared before the gates of St. Augustine, and endeavored to induce the garrison to march out to meet him; but they kept within their walls, and Oglethorpe in one of his despatches says, in the irritation caused by their prudence, "that they were so meek there was no provoking them." As in this incursion he had no object in view but a devastation of the country, and harrassing the enemy, he shortly withdrew his forces.
A committee of the South Carolina House of Commons, in a report upon the Oglethorpe expedition, thus speaks of St. Augustine, evidently smarting under the disappointment of their recent defeat.
* * * * *
"JULY 1ST, 1741."
"St. Augustine, in the possession of the crown of Spain, is well known to be situated but little distance from hence, in latitude thirty degrees, in Florida, the next territory to us. It is maintained by his Catholic Majesty, partly to preserve his claim to Florida, and partly that it may be of service to the plate-fleets when coming through the gulf, by showing lights to them along the coast, and by being ready to give assistance when any of them are cast away there-about. The castle, by the largest account, doth not cover more than one acre of ground, but is allowed on all hands to be a place of great strength, and hath been usually garrisoned with about three or four hundred men of the King's regular troops. The town is not very large, and but indifferently fortified. The inhabitants, many of which are mulattoes of savage dispositions, are all in the king's pay; also being registered from their birth, and a severe penalty laid on any master of a vessel that shall attempt to carry any of them off. These are formed into a militia, and have been generally computed to be near about the same number as the regular troops. Thus relying wholly on the king's pay for their subsistence, their thoughts never turned to trade or even agriculture, but depending on foreign supplies for the most common necessaries of life, they spent their time in universal, perpetual idleness. From such a state, mischievous inclinations naturally spring up in such a people; and having leisure and opportunity, ever since they had a neighbor the fruits of whose industry excited their desires and envy, they have not failed to carry those inclinations into action as often as they could, without the least regard to peace or war subsisting between the two crowns of Great Britain and Spain, or to stipulations agreed upon between the two governments."[33]
Among the principal grievances set forth in this report, was the carrying off and enticing and harboring their slaves, of which a number of instances are enumerated; and they attributed the negro insurrection which occurred in South Carolina, in 1739, to the connivance and agency of the Spanish authorities at St. Augustine; and they proceed in a climax of indignation to hurl their denunciation at the supposed authors of their misfortunes, in the following terms: "With indignation we looked at St. Augustine (like another Sallee!) That den of thieves and ruffians! receptacle of debtors, servants and slaves! bane of industry and society! and revolved in our minds all the injuries this province had received from thence, ever since its first settlement. That they had from first to last, in times of profoundest peace, both publickly and privately, by themselves, Indians, and Negroes, in every shape molested us, not without some instances of uncommon cruelty."[34]
It is very certain there was on each side, enough supposed causes of provocation to induce a far from amiable state of feeling between these neighboring colonies.