Mims Massacre

Page 446

"...Peter McQueen, who gathering a band of 300 warriors and collecting $400, set out for Pensacola early in July to get powder. The Spanish governor treated the Indians civilly and being in fear of violence gave them guns powder and ball."

"News of McQueen's expedition soon reached the American settlements above Mobile, where Colonel James Caller issued a proclamation calling for volunteers to attack McQueen. A large number of the Americans under the leadership of Caller, Samuel Dale, and...Dixon Bailey whose wife had been taken prisoner by McQueen, started on July 26 to intercept McQueen. On the next day they surprised the Indians at a place called Burnt Corn, about 80 miles north of Pensacola, and captured some of their stores though with a loss to themselves of 2 killed and 15 wounded. Thoroughly angered by the attack and determined to revenge himself, McQueen gathered about 800 Indians and on August 20 started in search of the men who had attacked him at Burnt Corn. McQueen's strongest ally was William Weatherford...who was bitterly hostile to Bailey and to Daniel Beasley...who had been engaged in the attack on McQueen. Both Beasley and Bailey were then at a stockade called Fort Mims, at the junction of the Alabama and the Tombigbee about 35 miles above Mobile."

"Governor Ferdinand L. Claiborne had sent Major Beasley with about 180 men to Fort Mims and subsequently urged Beasley to exercise the utmost vigilance and caution charging him to complete the blockhouses and to strengthen the blockades so as to be prepared against sudden attack. The refugees in the fort chose Dixon Bailey as commander, he being very popular for his share in the Burnt Corn expedition. Under some unaccountable delusion, neither Bailey nor Beasley acted as though there were any danger." [Source]

Concerns About The Calamities Of War

From Incidents in the life of Jacob Barker, of New Orleans, Louisiana: with historical facts, his financial transactions with the government and his course on important political questions, from 1800 to 1855.

Also see Jacob Barker, Financier In The War blog post.

Aftermath Of The Fort Mims Massacre

Claiborne, knowing how imminent was the danger to the frontier settlements from the Indians, was determined to protect not only Mobile, but the entire Southern section. To all his appeals for immediate action against the destroyers of the garrison at Fort Mims, with his troops writhing under inaction and nursing with an implacable spirit their grievance against the Indians for the brutal massacre at Fort Mims, with the war already established and a certainty of Great Britain's and Spain's assistance thereto, he had received...[a]...reply from the commander at Mobile: [Source]

Florida And The Other War Of 1812

Florida

The Other War of 1812: The Patriot War and the American Invasion of Spanish East Florida, by James G. Cusick, University of Georgia Press, Apr 15, 2007 - 392 pages (also here):

"...a party of Georgians invaded East Florida, confident that partisans there would help them swiftly wrest the colony away from Spain. The raid was a strategic and political disaster."

Source: Congressional Edition

Plot To Annex Florida

John Houston McIntosh and the sugar mill ruins marker in St Marys, Georgia.

McIntosh...settled in East Florida as a young man and became a leader of a group of American citizens who, during the War of 1812, plotted the annexation of East Florida to the United States. This plot crushed by the Spanish government... .

A letter to Thomas Flournoy (housed in Flournoy's papers at the University of Michigan) from the War of 1812 era:

A letter from John Houstoun McIntosh, director of the Territory of East Florida, concerning the settlers of Talbot Island and Nassau River, East Florida (December 26, 1812).

Louisiana - A Principal Point

Remnants Of A Coastal Louisiana Fort

Source

Coveting Florida

"There were other sources of friction (other than the Indians). On the continent of Europe, Great Britain was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Napoleon, and neither the British nor the French paid much attention to the rights of neutrals. The United States had legitimate grievances against both nations, but hostility toward Great Britain was intensified by her practice of seizing American seamen and forcing them to serve in the royal navy. Many Americans, moreover, coveted a chance to take the Floridas from Spain, Britain's ally in her was against France."

From The New Nation Grows... ,

What Was At Stake

Captives of Cupid: A Story of Old Detroit,  by Annetta Halliday Antona, centered upon the lives and loves of those who lived in Detroit.  Some of the characters were real, including Tecumseh, Pierre Navarre, and others.

"The war of 1812 had broken out and the young Republic of the United States, from its eastern to its western boundary, labored in the throes of a bloody struggle which, if terminated unsuccessfully, signified the loss of all that the Revolution, at the cost of innumerable lives, had striven to obtain."

The Mississippi Territory

Source

"....the Mississippi Territory in the War of 1812, accompanied by a complete roster of the soldiers of the young Territory which, only fourteen years before, had been released from Spanish rule."

Biography Of Col. Richard M Johnson

The Authentic biography of Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky was published in 1833.

Richard Mentor Johnson, the third son of Colonel Robert Johnson, was born in the autumn of 1780/1, in Kentucky, which was then a county in Virginia.  After some local schooling, Richard M. Johnson attended Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, and then studied law.  He represented the citizens of Scott County, Kentucky, when he was quite young, and took his seat in the U.S. Congress in October of 1807.  While in Congress the whole country was in an uproar when the British frigate Leopard attacked frigate Chesapeake.

Source

The other dispute referenced above occurred in 1802 when the Spanish Intendant closed the Port at New Orleans to the United States, in violation of a treaty.  War was anticipated, especially in the Western States.  Richard Johnson, at age 20, volunteered for military service and was elected to command a company.  The dispute was settled peacefully.

Richard M. Johnson, while still a member of Congress, offered to be an aid to General Harrison, who was then in charge of the Kentucky troops as well as his own Indiana soldiers, and also offered to recruit for the military.

Other posts relating to Richard Johnson here.

Homage To Agent 13

Not only was General James Wilkinson the U.S. Army's commanding officer, he was also "Agent 13 in service to the Spanish Crown."  

A scholastic work entitled "Agent 13 In The North Country, mentioned that the author "...entered the archives with some previous knowledge of Agent 13’s malfeasance [and was]...astounded by the fact that several of General Wilkinson’s letters of correspondence were among its [the archives's] contents.  An exhibit was designed that highlighted General Wilkinson and his activities in the War of 1812.

More about that colorful character, James Wilkinson can be found here.