The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-11-19
THE STORY OF THE NEGRO FORT.

IdE SlOh1 UF IhE NEGkU FURT.
During the war of 1924, between
Great Britain and the United States,
the weak Spanish Governor of Florida
for Florida was then Spanish terri
tory-permitted the British to make
Pensacola their base of operations
against us. This was gross outrage,
as we were at peace with Spain at the
time, and General Jackson. acting on
his own responsibility, invaded Florida
in ret aliation.
Among the British at that time was
an eccentric Irish officer, Colonel Ed
ward Nichols, who enlisted and tried to
make soldiers of large number of
the Seminole Indians. In 1915, after
the war was over, Colonel Nichols again
visited the Seminoles, who were dis
posed to be hostile to the United States,
as Colonel Nichols himself was, and
made an astonishing treaty with them,
in which an alliance offensive and de-
fensive, between Great Britain and the
Seminoles was agreed upon. We had
made peace with Great Britain a few
months before, and yet this astonishing
Irish Colonel signed treaty binding
Great Britain to fight us whenever the
Seminoles in the Spanish territory of
Florida should see fit to make war! If
this extraordinary performance had
been all, it would not have mattered so
much, because the British Government
refused to ratify the treaty; but it was
not all. Colonel Nichols, as if deter
mined to give us as much trouble as he
could, built strong fortress on the
Appalachicola River, and gave it to his
friends the Seminoles, naming it s'The
British Post on the Appalachicola,
where the British had not the least
right to have any post whatever. Stu
ated on a high bluff, with TANKS secure
ly guarded by the river on one side and
a swamp on the other, this fort, prop
erly defended, was capable of resisting
the assaults of almost any force that
could approach it; and Colonel Nichols
was determined that it should be prop
erly defended, and should be a constant
menace and source of danger to the
United States. He armed it with one
thirty-two-pounder cannon, three twen-
ty-four-pounders and eight other guns.
In the matter of small arms he was even
more liberal. He supplied the fort with
$500 muskets, 500 carbines, 400 pistols
and 500 swords. In the magazines he
stored 800 quarter casks of rifle powder
and 1853 barrels of ordinary gunpowder.
When Colonel Nichols went away,
his Seminoles soon wandered off. leay-
ing the fort without a garrison. This
? gave an opportunity to a negro bandit
and desperate named Garcon to seize
the place, which he did, gathering about
him a large band of runaway negroes,
Choctaw Indians and other lawless per-
sons, whom he organized into a strong
company of robbers. Garcon made the
fort his stronghold and began to plum
der the country round about as thor
oughly as any robber baron or Italian
bandit ever did, sometimes venturino
across the border into the United States.
All this was so annoying and so
threatening to our frontier settlements
in Georgia, that General jackson de-
manded of the Spanish authorities that
they should reduce the place, and they
&, would have been glad enough to do so.
probably, if it had been possible, be-
cause the banditti plundered Spanish as
well as other settlements. But the
Spanish Governor had no force at com.
mand, and could do nothing, and so
the fort remained standing menace to
the American borders.
Matters were in this position in the
spring of 1916, when General Gaines
was sent to fortify our frontier. at the
point where the Chattahoochee and
fhnt rivers unite to form the Appa-
lachicola. In June of that year some
stores for General Gaines forces were
sent by sea from New Orleans. The
vessels carrying them were to 60 up
the Appalachicola, and General Gaines
was not sure that the little fleet would
be permitted to pass the robbers
stronghold, which had come to be
called the Negro Fort. Accordingly
he sent Colonel Clinch with a small
force down the river, to render any as
sistance that might be necessary. On
the way Colonel Clinch was Joined by
band of Seminoles, who wanted TO re-
capture the fort on their own account.
and the two bodies determined to act
together.
Meantime the two schooners with
supplies and the two gun-boats sent to
guard them had arrived at the mouth of
the river; and when the commandant
tried to hold conference with Garcon,
the ships boat, bearing white flag,
was fired upon. =
Running short of water while lying
off the rivers mouth, the officers of the
fleet sent out boat to procure a sup
ply. This boat was armed with q
swivel and muskets, and was command.
ed by Midshipman Luffborough. The
boat went into the mouth of the river
and seeing negro on shore, Midship.
man Luffborough landed to ask fol-