Last in Their Class. James Robbins
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Territory. The resistance was led by chiefs and warlords such as Micanopy, Billy Bowlegs, Coacoochee, Alligator, Halleck Tustenuggee, and a dynamic young half-white named Billy Powell, whom the Indians called Osceola. He was not a chief, but his intelligence, charisma and resolve, not to mention hatred of the whites, made Osceola a natural leader. He was opposed on principle to the negotiations, and legend has it that at an 1834 council with General Wiley Thompson, the Indian agent for Florida, Osceola declared, “the only treaty I will execute is with this,” driving a knife through a copy of the treaty and leaving it sticking in the table.
Osceola was set on war, and according to Alligator, they had been planning the opening moves for over a year.4 Their first step was to send a message to the moderates that divisions within the tribe were not to be tolerated. They chose for their example Charley Emathla, a well-known and loved chief who was a proponent of emigration. Osceola and his band openly shot Charley down on November 26, 1835, as he was walking with his two young daughters. This bald act of savagery had its intended effect—none raised a hand against Osceola afterwards.5 The next stage was to demonstrate to the whites that the Seminoles were serious about remaining in Florida by undertaking a shocking major attack that would leave the Americans reeling. They planned a two-part strike, a coordinated blow led personally by Osceola to take place on December 28, 1835.
The first phase of the attack was targeted at General Thompson, who had recently put Osceola in chains for six days for protesting when the gunpowder supply was cut off. Osceola had won release by agreeing to be shipped west, but he had no such intention and bore a deep grudge. Early on December 28, Thompson and Lieutenant Constantine Smith were strolling and smoking cigars near Fort King when a sudden volley of musket fire from the bushes tore them apart. Osceola’s war party ran forward and scalped and mutilated the two officers. Sutler Erastus Rogers and his assistants, whose cabin was outside the walls, were also killed, and the Indians retreated into the wilderness, heading south.
Fifty miles away, Major Francis L. Dade led his column north towards Fort King, oblivious to the threat. His mission was to reinforce the isolated outpost, either to deter Indian attack or to defend against it. Dade was not an Academy graduate, but he knew West Point well, having been commander of the “bombardier” company for several years. He had with him eight officers and one hundred men, led by a local guide named Luis, a slave owned by a sutler named Antonio Pacheco.6 Luis spoke the local Indian dialects, as well as Spanish, French and English, and was acquainted with the route to the interior. Command of the column had originally fallen to Captain George W. Gardiner, former Commandant of the Academy, “the Little God of War” who had wrapped fire tongs around Cadet Pratt’s neck in a fit of jealousy over Eliza Kinsley. Gardiner had since married, and his wife, Frances, had accompanied him to Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay. When Frances fell ill, Dade volunteered to take Gardiner’s place so he could remain behind to attend to her. The column set off on Christmas Day, 1835. A short time after the troops had departed, Frances Gardiner was given an opportunity to accompany some friends to Key West and thence to New York, where she might get medical attention. George insisted she go, and after the ship left he mounted his horse and dashed after the column, followed by his dog.
The Seminoles, led by Micanopy, Jumper and Alligator, had planned their ambush well. They waited in concealed positions, in a crescent-shaped formation with interlocking fields of fire. They had taken other means to ensure success—unbeknownst to Dade, his guide, Luis, was working with the enemy.7 The original plan was to wait for Osceola to join them from Fort King before starting the attack, but as the column neared and Osceola had not arrived, Alligator overruled the older and more cautious Micanopy, and the attack went ahead.
Dade and half his men went down in the first volley. Gardiner, farther back in the column, quickly took command and began organizing a defense. He, Lieutenant W. E. Basinger, second in the Class of 1830, and Assistant Surgeon J. S. Gatlin were the only officers who had not been hit. Basinger and a crew unlimbered the sole artillery piece and fired grapeshot to keep the Seminoles at bay, but being dispersed they did not present a favorable target. Other troops under Gardiner’s direction fired their muskets, and during a lull, the thirty or so survivors fashioned a triangular breastwork with pine logs. They brought in as many wounded as they could, and Gatlin patched their wounds. Luis, meanwhile, had feigned death, then took refuge with the Seminoles. When the Indians returned, the soldiers mounted a fierce defense, repulsing at least one rush, Gardiner coolly coordinating the action from the center of the small redoubt. Alligator later described “a little man, a great brave, who shook his sword at the soldiers and said ‘God damn!’ No rifle ball could hit him.”8 Nevertheless, attrition took its toll on the desperate defenders, who soon found themselves kneeling in a pond of their comrades’ blood.
Gardiner eventually went down after taking five wounds. When the firing stopped, the Indians rushed the position and began killing the wounded. Basinger, the only officer left, attempted to surrender his sword, and the Seminoles paused a moment before one of them shot him down. The Indians took most of the scalps, but otherwise left the bodies unmolested.
The Seminoles were jubilant. Osceola’s plan had succeeded beyond their expectations. They had annihilated the American force and taken only a few losses. They held a wild celebration at their encampment in Great Wahoo Swamp, at which the scalps of the dead were mounted on poles and addressed as though their original owners were present. Osceola took particular pleasure in renegotiating the emigration treaty with pieces of General Thompson.
Three wounded enlisted men survived the carnage, and after the attackers left they tried to make it back to Fort Brooke. Two of them completed the journey, one of whom later succumbed to his wounds. The only other survivor of the doomed column to return to Tampa was Captain Gardiner’s dog.
FLORIDA WAS SOON ENGULFED in violence. By February 1, most of the territory south of St. Augustine was abandoned by settlers. The violence unleashed by the Seminoles was unprecedented in its scope and effectiveness, and it took the country completely by surprise. As one writer observed later in the war, “no nation or tribe, however insignificant, should be unnecessarily provoked to hostility, lest a power of vengeance be imparted to them beyond all foresight or calculation.”9
Reinforcements were sent to Florida, and volunteer militia units, particularly from Tennessee, rushed to the seat of war. General Winfield Scott was called in to be the field commander. He expected it to be a quick action, similar to one fought by Andrew Jackson twenty years earlier. He confidently laid out his terms—“unconditional surrender.” But Scott had poorly estimated the challenge he faced. Florida had some small cities on the periphery, but was largely unexplored in the interior. There were no good maps, which made campaign planning and coordination difficult. There were few roads and fewer bridges. The terrain was hostile: swampland with low hills called “hummocks,” lagoons, and pine forests in the higher elevations. Beyond the operational issues, there was no good intelligence on exactly how many Seminole warriors were in the field. President Jackson believed they numbered no more than 400. His secretary of war, Lewis Cass, felt the number to be closer to 750. Jackson’s estimate prevailed, not only because he was president, but also because he had fought and defeated these same Indians two decades prior, creating an assumption that he must know what he was talking about.10
The conflict quickly fell into a pattern. Columns would march into the wilderness in search of the enemy, without a good idea where they were going. They thus presented an ideal target for the Seminoles, who usually had set up ambushes. Fortunately for the soldiers, the Seminoles lacked training and discipline, and after the first volley they did not exploit their advantage. Seminoles also did not use enough powder per round (powder being a scarce commodity) and the balls that hit their mark did not always have the energy to kill or even wound severely. The Indians would hold their position for as long as they could, and if pressed would scatter. Because the Indians were unencumbered and could retreat in several directions at once, and Army columns were limited by their baggage trains and supply lines, there was no way to exploit a victory. This type of fighting did not result in many Indian deaths, nor did it gain ground, which there was no point in holding anyway.
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