When Andrew Jackson became president in 1829, proposals for general removal
of all Indians to the West got new official support. In his first annual
message he asked for land in the West to which Indians could elect to move
or to come under the jurisdiction of the states where they lived. Congress
responded by enacting the legislation on May 28, 1830, and the fate of the
Florida Seminoles was sealed. The inadequacy of the Florida reservation and
the desperate situation of the Seminoles living there , plus the mounting
demand of the whites for their removal, soon produced action. In 1832,
James Gadsden, who had negotiated the earlier treaty, called a meeting at
Payne's Landing on the Oklahawa River, a site well known to all of the
Indians, to persuade them to go West. The agent apparently convinced them
that further resistance was useless, possibly that the government would no
longer feed them, and certainly that they would live under the laws of
Florida if they elected to remain in the Territory. Some Indians later
charged that they had been coerced; others said that Abraham, the influential
Negro interpreter, had been bribed to mislead them; and yet others denied
that they had signed the agreement. Significantly, only seven chiefs and
eight subchiefs signed the document in contrast to the thirty-two signers
at Moultrie Creek in 1827.
The Indians in the small reservations along the Apalachicola who were
separated from the treaty site by white settlements did not participate in
the negotiations at Payne's Landing. They probably also had developed
separate interests, but their position too was becoming untenable. They
charged that whites violated the reservation boundaries, and the whites in
turn charged the Indians with harboring runaway slaves. Their leaders proved
more tractable than the main body of Seminoles, and Governor Duval was able
to negotiate an agreement with three of them on October 121, 1832, to
migrate on the first of November a year later in return for the payment of
$13,000. On June 18, 1833, Colonel Gadsden made a similiar agreement with
the remaining three groups after reminding them that they must live under the
laws of Florida without the protection of the United States government if
they elected to remain there. The last of them did not leave until early
1836.
The treaty of Payne's Landing provided that before the agreement to migrate
became binding, a delegation of seven chiefs must inspect the new lands and
approve them. The Indians would then leave in three shifts within three
years after the ratification of the treaties. The delegation of chiefs
visited the land offered them, a separate part of the Creek reservation
in Indian Territory, on March 28, 1833, signed the "Treaty of Fort
Gibson" approving and accepting it for their fellow tribesmen. This,
however, did not end the matter. Two of the chiefs, wishing to repudiate
their action, claimed that they had not signed, and another said that he
had agreed knowing that members of the delegation could not bind the
other Seminoles by their signing. Others back in Florida insisted that
they were not bound by the acts of the signers of either treaty and
would not in any case leave before the twenty-year period covered by the
Treaty of Moultrie Creek had expired. The United States government, on
the other hand, ratified the documents on April 8, 1834, providing for
removal within three years. Indian agent General Wiley Thompson started
talks with the Indians in October of the same year but soon concluded
that only force could induce them to move. General Duncan L. Clinch, in
charge of the United States troops in Florida and who had been
negotiating with the Indians leaders for a year, warned them to go
peacefully or face the prospect of removal by force. Other council
sessions the following December and April served only to reveal the
determination of the Indians to resist removal by force of arms if
necessary, Thompson finally set January 1, 1836, as the date for
migration.
As the year 1835 progressed, signs of increasing Indian unrest,
resentment, and tendency to violence multiplied. A skirmish between
militia and Indians occurred at Hickory Sink near Gainesville in June.
In August, Indians killed an army courier, Private Kinsley H. Dalton,
near the Hillsborough River on the trail from Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay
to Fort King near present-day Ocala. Younger and more daring Indians were
seizing leadership among the Indians. John Hicks, who had already lost
much of his moderating influence, died in 1833, and his successor
opposed emigration. Osceola, who lacked the status of chief, emerged as
the leader and symbol of the opposition and became the nearest thing to
providing common leadership that the Seminoles ever achieved.
General Thompson set December 1, 1835, for a sale at which Indians about
to emigrate might bring and sell their cattle. Charley Emathla, one of
the more important chiefs, brought his cattle and was ambushed and
killed on his way home. The killers reportedly left the money strewn on
the ground about his body to dispel any notion that robbery was the
motive and possibly also as an expression of contempt for the sell-out.
Osceola and a band of Mikasukis received credit for the outrage, as they
would in the future be suspected of all acts of violence not otherwise
easily explained. Fourteen other chlefs committed to removal fled with
500 of their people to Fort Brooke for protection. When it was reported
tbat Indian warriors were sending their women and children away for
safety, whites also began to abandon outlying settlements and to gather
at strategic points to protect themselves.
The following, taken from the Florida Genealogical Society, Inc.
"JOURNAL", March 1989, Madison County Soldiers who served in the Florida-
Seminole War, 1835 - 1842, lists many Langfords and their relatives.
(marked *)
Captain Thomas Livingston's Company of Mounted Volunteers of the Florida
Militia, commanded by Brigader-General R. K. Call. This company
mustered into service at San Pedro, December 9, 1835; mustered out on
February 25, 1836.
Thomas Livingston ...............Captain
Asa Townsend....................1st Lieut.
Silas Overstreet...................2nd Lieut.
Richard Blair.......................Ensign
Banjamin Holland................1st Sargant
Edward Henderson.............2nd Sargant
PRIVATES
Baker, Moses............................Livingston, M.C.
Birch, James..............................McGhee, J.C.
Bird, Isiah..................................McLendon, A.
Bird, Sylvanus...........................Miller, John
Blair, Judson.............................Moody, Daniel
Boatwright, J.W........................Norton, Lewis
Booth, J. ..................................Overstreet *
Bradley, R.D.............................Paterson, R.
Cason, Sialas (sic) *.................Perry, O.H.
Clardy, Thomas........................Perry, S.J.
Clemens, John..........................Ragland, L.G.
Dees, L.M............................... Roberts, Wiley
Dees, M.N.............................. Runner, T.
Ewing, D.B..............................Schnider, I.
Fichpatrick, T.B. (sic)............. Spies, H.H.
Fuqua, Amos..........................Stewart, I.
Hadden, Hugh........................Townsend, A.
Henderson, Sam.....................Townsend, B.
Hurst, Daniel..........................Townsend, D.R.
Kemp, Joshua........................Townsend, S.
Lamb, C.H............................Waters, H.M.
Langford, Thomas *...............Zipperer, S.
Leslie, L.G.
The above and Muster Rolls following, were taken from the "First Annual,
1927-1938", publication issued by the Madison County Historical Society;
located in the Historical Room of the Court House, Tampa, Florida.
Muster Roll, Lieut. James Livingston's Company, First Regiment, Second
Brigade, Florida Militia, mustered into service July 20, 1836 at Fort
Palmetto, mustered out of service November 20, 1836 at Fort Gilleland.
James Livingston.........................1st Lieut.
William Johnson..........................2nd Lieut.
Soloman Zipperer......................Orderly Sargt.
George Overstreet *..................1st Sargt.
Jacob Snyder............................Corp.
William Johnson, Jr...................Corp.
Privates
Bellamy, John B.......................Guibert, S. (sic)
Clark, Henry........................... Hudson, Samuel
Clark, Silas.............................. Langford, John *
Clark, William...........................Langford, Wiley *
Daley, Daniel............................Langford, William *
Desha, Franklin.........................Livingston, Felix
Dunlap, George........................Michael, James
English, Cornelius.....................Prevat, James N.
Futch, William J.......................Riggs, Emanuel
Godwin, Seborn......................Russel, Samuel
Green, Isaac............................Simmons, M.
Smith, William.........................Walson, Joseph N.
Stephens, Ferdinado...............Wingate, Thomas
Walker, James....................... Wood, Absolom
Walker, John
Muster Roll Captain James Livingston's Mounted Company of the First
Regiment, Second Florida Militia. This company was mustered into
service by Major General Jesup at Fort Palmetto, Florida on December 20,
1836 for a term of six months. This company was mustered out of service
June 5, 1837, at Fort Palmetto. They were invited to re-join, but
refused because of "want of subsistence and forage for their horses.
NAME RANK COLOR OF HORSE
James Livingston..................Captain................Sorrel
John Wilson.........................1st Lieut...............Bay
Thomas Langford *.............2nd Lieut.............Black Mare
Silas Overstreet *................Ord. Sgt...............Cream
John Langford *..................Sarg......................Bay
L. G. Leslie ........................Sarg......................Bay
William Johnson..................Corp.....................Bay
George E. Overstreet..........Corp.....................Grey
Sol. Zipperer......................Corp......................Bay
PRIVATES
Bevan, John ...............Bay
Booth, James..............Red Mare
Carban, James............Red
Carban, Moses...........Tan
Carraway, Elisha Jr.....Red Mare
Carraway, Elisha Sr....Grey
Carraway, Joshua.......Bay
Caruth, C. L...............Sorrel
Cason, Silas...............Grey Mule
Clark, Silas................Mule
Clark, William...........Black Mare
Collins, Dennis...........Bay
Driver, John...............Bay
Edwards, Henry........Bay
Gillett, Ed...................Bay
Godden, Alec...........Black
Godden, Beaborn.....Don't know
Hargroves, William....Bay
Hill, Stacy B..............Iron Grey
PRIVATES WHO SERVED WITHOUT HORSES
Hall, James.......................................Morley, Edward
Holland, James.................................Oliver, Charles L.
Hunter, John.....................................Peterson, John
Johnson, Green.................................Roland, Edward
Lane, Craven....................................Sikes, Arthur
Lane, James..................................... Sistrunk, Calvin
Langford, Little John *......................Sistrunk, Henry
Langford, Wiley*..............................Snider, Jacob
Langford, William*...........................Summerall, Jacob
Langford, William J*........................Townsend, Jacob
Wilkerson, Jessie
Muster Roll, Captain Livingston's Company of the 2nd Florida Brigade.
Mustered into service at San Pedro, Florida June 16, 1837, for six
months.
M. C. Livingston........................Captain
Silas Overstreet*........................1st Lieut.
Sol. Zipperer..............................2nd Lieut.
Silas Overstreet*........................1st Sarg.
John Clemens.............................2nd Sarg.
Samuel Henderson.....................3rd Sarg.
Emanuel Beggs...........................4th Sarg.
Thomas Cowart.........................Corp.
Isom Howell..............................Corp.
John Zipperer............................Corp.
PRIVATES
Anderson, James.................................Burnett, John R.
Bell, Ducan.........................................Caruth, C. L.
Blair, Jackson.....................................Cason, Silas
Bone, George.....................................Church, Lucius
Breneham, Steve................................Clark, Silas
Clark, William....................................Platt, David
Clements, William..............................Platt, Peter
Clifton, Henry Sr...............................Powlage, John G.
Craey, William R..............................Roberts, Henry
Crim, Harmon..................................Roberts, Herman
Cowart, William...............................Sapp, Allen
Devane, Benjamin............................Sapp, Henry
Driggers, Simon...............................Sapp, Mack
Easters, Agustus (sic).......................Sapp, William
Ewing, D. W....................................Sever, John
Faulkner, James...............................Sever, William
Field, Anderson...............................Sever, William H.
Giddens, Ducan...............................Smith, Isiac
Godwin, Seborn..............................Smith, John M.
Hargroves, William..........................Snyder, Jacob
Holland, James................................Summerlin, Allen
King, Lewis....................................Sutton, Irvin
King, William..................................Townsend, Allen
Langford, John Sr*.........................Townsend, Benjamin
Langford, John L.*.........................Townsend, Jesse
Langford, Thomas*........................Townsend, John
Langford, Wiley*...........................Triplet, Eli
Langford, William *........................Vickers, Aaron
Langford, William Sr.*...................Wamer, Zena
Lanier, Lewis.................................Warren, Benjamin
Livingston, James promoted to.......Wells, Jacob
Lt. Col. July 20...........................Wells, Martin
McLeod, Angus.............................Wheeler, Noah
McLeod, William...........................Wilder, John M.
McRaney, Neal..............................Wiley, Aldridge
Monroe, John.................................Williams, Roland
Moody, Perry.................................Wilson, Busby
Overstreet, George E.*...................Wyche, John L.
Parker, Ishford................................Zipperer, James
Parker, Luke...................................Zipperer, John
Parker, William
Muster Roll M. C. Livingston's Company of Mounted Volunteers from
February 12, 1838 until July 26, 1838. This company was mustered into
service at San Pedro by Major S. Churchill.
M. C. Livingston.................................Captain
Thomas Langford *.............................1st Lieut.
Sam T. Henderson..............................2nd Lieut.
Alec McDaniel....................................1st Sarg.
Angus McLeod...................................2nd Sarg.
James Henderson................................Sarg.
Lewis Lanier.......................................Sarg.
Elmore Callaway.................................Corp.
T. F. Jones..........................................Corp.
John Riggs..........................................Corp.
Irvin Sutton.........................................Corp.
Cravey Lamb......................................Bugler
PRIVATES
Barker, Moses.................................Driggers, S. B.
Barrs, D. C......................................Driggers, S. L.
Barrs, W..........................................Durence, F. M. *
Bell, Abram......................................Durence, F. W. *
Bell, Ducan.......................................Easters, Augustine
Bell, John.........................................Finch, Charles
Blair, G. I.........................................Fulkeway, Amos
Brennen, Henry................................Godwin, Charles
Brittenham, Lewis............................Hadden, Norman
Brough, Jerry..................................Hammens, James
Canno, Henry.................................Henderson, David
Cason, Silas*.................................Henderson, William
Cleary, Sam...................................Herring, David
Clifton, Henry................................Hill, Berryan
Cooner, James..............................Hogan, John
Cowart, John................................Holland, James
Cowart, Thomas...........................Hurst, Johm
Devane, Benjamin.........................Jamison, K. K.
Jamison, Jesse..............................Sapp, Riley
King, Lewis..................................Sapp, William
King, William................................Sever, Bryan
Lamb, Jard...................................Sever, Enoch
Langford, Elleby*.........................Sever, H. W.
Langford, John Jr**.....................Sever, John
Langford, John Sr*......................Sever, William
Langford, William*......................Street, Racey
Lastinger, Seaborn......................Street, William
Leslie, L. G................................Suggs, M. P.
Martin, James............................Summerlin, Allan
McCall, McKeen......................Summerlin, Elisha
McCardel, William....................Townsend, Allan
McCranny, Neil........................Townsend, Benjamin
McLeod, James........................Townsend, Isreal
Morris, Edwin...........................Townsend, John
Morrison, Murdock..................Triplett, Eli
Morrison, Norman...................Walker, Flemming
Neal, John...............................Walker, John
Overstreet, S. S.*....................Waters, H.
Parker, Asfrod (sic).................Wilder, Hopkins
Pickles, Michael.......................Williams, Allen
Ragland, L. G..........................Williams, J. N.
Revels, Owen..........................Williams, Roland
Sapp, Alec..............................Wood, S. L.
Sapp, Henry
NOTE: Some names are listed more than once because of transferring from
one company to another. Originally compiled by Carlton Smith.
** John Langford Jr. was killed by Indians in Bradford County, 1838.
On December 17, 1835, Indians attacked the plantations of Captain
Simmons at Micanopy south of Gainesville and of Captain Priest of
Wacahonta in the same area, damaging property and stealing cattle but
not harming any whites. The first pitched battle occurred the next day
at a point six miles southwest of Micanopy in which eight whites lost
their lives and six were wounded. Two days later, Florida militia
marched to the scene and recovered some of the property that had not
been destroyed, but the elusive Indians were nowhere to be found.
Rich sugar plantations in the Matanzas, Tomoka, and Mosquito areas (of
which Dr. Mark F. Boyd identified some two dozen) became the next
targets of the raiders. As early as October, General Joseph M.
Hernandez, commanding the militia in East Florida, warned the governor
that these properties with their valuable cattle and slaves that might
easily be driven away might require protection. On December 17, militia
units took up stations in three places but proved to be inadequate to
defend them. On Christmas Day of 1835, Seminoles raided a number of
them, burning all of the buildings at New Smyrna. Within sixty days
where the plantations had not already been destroyed, owners had
abandoned them, fleeing to safety with such property as they could carry
away. Not one of the plantations was ever again restored to sugar
production, Two of the sugar mills are under the custodianship of the
Florida Board of Parks and Historic Memorials, and other ruins are in
private hands.
Meanwhile events were moving even more rapidly in other areas to hasten
the coming of all-out war. On the afternoon of December 28, 1835,
Indians shot General Thompson and Lieutenant Constantine Smith from
ambush not three hundred yards from the walls of a stockade at Fort King
as they strolled outside after dinner. They also killed the sutler,
Erastus Rogers, and several others working with him to move the stock of
goods into the fort for safety from Indian raid. On the same day Major
Francis Langhorne Dade, in command of two companies of soldiers marching
from Fort Brooke to Fort King, walked into an ambush about five miles
from the Wahoo Swamp near Bushnell in Sumter County in which 108 men
lost their lives and only three escaped. Major Dade was killed by the
first shot, and the command fell to an artillery officer whose tactics
were ill-suited to fighting Indians.
Another series of events leading to a major encounter between Indians
and whites not far away was working toward a climax. President Andrew
Jackson had ordered General Duncan L. Clinch to move with his regular
troops against a concentration of Seminoles reportedly gathering on the
Withlacoochee River at a point some thirty-five miles south of Fort
Drane where he had concentrated his forces. At Clinch's request,
territorial secretary and acting Governor George K. Walker (Governor
John H. Eaton was frequently absent for long periods) ordered general of
militia Richard Keith Call to raise Florida volunteers to join the
regulars for one campaign against the Indians. Five hundred mounted men
supplying their own horses and arms joined half that number of regulars
at Fort Drane on Clinch's plantation ten miles south of Micanopy for the
single campaign they believed would convince the Seminoles of the folly
of resistance. The short term enlistments of the volunteers were to
expire in four more days when Clinch marched to the attack, leaving Fort
Drane on December 29, and moving to within three miles of the river on
the next day. On the last day of the month the guides led the marching
men to what was supposed to be a wide shallow crossing of the
Withlacoochee where horses and men could wade across the stream.
Instead they came to a deep and swift moving point on the stream about
150 feet wide, with only one small canoe available to put men and
equipment across. In a sense this was a fortunate circumstance, for the
Indians were lying in wait for them at the crossing miles upstream where
they might have been expected to cross. As it was Clinch had a half day
in which to put the regulars and twenty-seven of the volunteers across
the stream before the Indians attacked the divided force, killing four
and wounding fifty-nine of them and losing three killed and four wounded
of their own number. The great body of the militiamen unable or
unwilling to attempt the crossing merely looked on and contented
themselves with covering the retreat of their hard pressed comrades at
arms. The few volunteers who did participate in the fight held the left
flank and gave a good account of themselves, seven being wounded, but
the event renewed the time honored conflict between the professional and
the volunteer soldier which was to continue throughout the seven years
of the conflict.
General Clinch had underestimated the possibility of Indian resistance,
but now that the conflict had begun in earnest the United States
government moved quickly to strengthen the armed forces in Florida.
General Call, meanwhile, was urging his friend President Jackson to put
him in command of the 2,500 to 3,000 men he considered necessary to
defeat and round up the Indians for the journey to the West. In January
1836 the President ordered General Winfield Scott to take command in
Florida and the war department sent fourteen companies of regulars to
join Clinch's command. Commodore Alexander J. Dallas, in command of the
navy in Florida waters, received orders to prevent any trade in arms
between the Seminoles and traders from Cuba and the West Indies.
Sporadic violence broke out all over the territory where whites lived on
the frontier. In isolated and thinly populated South Florida on January
6 Indians killed the family of William Colee on New River. Other
frightened settlers in the locality fled to Key Biscayne and found
refuge with the keeper of the lighthouse until they could be taken to
Key West, When authorities failed to heed the urgings of keeper Jon
Dubose that the lighthouse should have a military guard, it fell to the
attack of Indians on July 23. A negro helper, Aaron Carter, was killed,
the light tender Irwin Thompson wounded, and the combustible portions of
the lighthouse burned. Shortly thereafter, the navy established Fort
Dallas on Key Biscayne, a post which the army was later to move to the
north bank of the Miami River.
When General Edmund I. Gaines, commander of the western military
district in which the Dade massacre occurred, learned of the incident he
proceeded immediately to the scene of the disaster, unaware that Scott
had been ordered to Florida. Gaines arrived at Tampa Bay early in
February with 1,100 regulars and volunteers and marched to Fort King
along the route followed by Dade's unfortunate men. He stopped en route
to bury the victims of the massacre and reached Fort King on the tenth.
When Scott reached Palatka on the Saint James on July 26 and discovered
that Gaines was already on the scene, it set off a furious feud between
the two that made direct communication impossible.
General Call suceeded John H. Eaton as governor of the Territory on
March 16, and used his new position to energetically push the effort to
remove the Seminoles. When he learned that General Scott was about to
cease campaigning in the summer months he protested vigorously and
demanded that he be allowed to conduct a summer campaign to prevent the
Indians from using the time to produce crops and prepare to renew the
conflict in the fall. The administration finally yielded, and on May
18, 1836, placed Call in command of all troops in Florida to serve until
General Thomas S. Jesup should arrive in the fall to take over the
command. However sound his notion of summer campaigning may have been,
the general-governor was doomed to failure before he started. Regular
army and navy personnel resented him as a militia officer. Too many
regular officers had already been given long summer leaves of absence.
The task required talents of a high order. Call had neither the
training nor the experience it demanded. Services of supply broke down,
the movements of some Tennessee volunteers were poorly coordinated, and
the first effort to go on the offensive resulted in little more than
some futile marching. Before a letter dated November 4 relieving him of
command could reach him, he had reorganized his forces for a second
effort, in which he attacked the Indians along the Withlacoochee on
November 17, 18, and 21 and drove them away but was unable to engage
them in battle and inflict any real damage. He was embittered by the
necessity to turn the command over to Jesup, but he was only one of
several military men including his successor to achieve little more than
frustration in the Florida campaign against the Seminoles. General
Scott had already produced a list of formidable obstacles to successful
campaigning in Florida. Among them were the short terms of service of
so many of the volunteers, insufficent services of transport and supply,
the hot climate, the rainy season, inadequate roads and bridges,
scarcity of grazing and forage for horses, and lack of guides and
information about the country in which he was to operate.
General Jesup, who took over from Call, had some 4,000 men under his
command for a campaign along the Withlacoochee through the winter
1836-1837. When he had brought what he hoped was convincing pressure
upon them, he turned to treating with the Indians to induce them to move
peaceably. A considerable number agreed to depart if the government
would buy their cattle, hogs, and ponies and allow them to take along
their Negroes. Jesup urged whites to accept the terms and not to
interfere with their departure. By the month of June 1837 some 700
Indians had gathered at Fort Brooke to await transportation to the West.
There seemed to be no hurry, but delay proved disastrous. On the night
of June 7, without warning, almost all of the Indians vanished into the
woods. Slave hunting whites may have arrived to arouse new fears among
them that their Negroes would not be allowed to go. A soldier may have
shot a young squaw fleeing his attention. An outbreak of measles may
have been thought to be the dreaded smallpox. Perhaps it had merely
been possible for dissenters to work upon Indian fears and doubts. At
any rate, all of the work of force and persuasion had to be done over
again, a mistake Jesup would not make another time.
Active campaigning ceased during the summer months of 1837 to be resumed
in the fall. Early in September four Negroes who came in to surrender
to General Joseph M. Hernandez of the territorial militia commanding
east of the Saint Johns reported a body of Indians in the region of
Mosquito Inlet making coontie starch. Hernandez moved immediately and
on the ninth surprised and captured King Philip and his band without a
shot being fired. On the next day he accomplished the same with Yuchi
Billy and his followers with the loss of only one white man and one
Indian. The general confined his captives in the big stone fort at
Saint Augustine, then called Fort Marion. Philip secured permission to
send Tomoko John, one of the captives, to bring his family in to share
his captivity. In a few days his son Coacoochee, or Wildcat, and three
others came in. Coacoochee proved friendly and cooperative and was
allowed to return to the woods upon his promise to use his efforts to
bring in people, stolen cattle, and Negroes. To the surprise of
Hernandez he did return on October 17 with Philip's brother and his own
younger brother, and reported that Osceola with several other chiefs and
about a hundred Indians were about a day's march distant on their way in
for a conference. Osceola did come in, and at about the same time
General Jesup arrived and ordered that the assembled Indians not be
allowed to escape under any circumstances.
General Hernandez met Osceola standing under a flag of truce, surrounded
the Indians with troops, and captured them without any effort or
resistance on their part. When the new prisoners were added to those
already in the fort, the noise they made and the uneasy fear that they
might escape frightened the citizens of Saint Augustine. On November
19, Coacoochee and nineteen others did escape, in time for the young
warrior to rally Indian forces and lead them in the Battle of
Okeechobee, the last pitched battle of the war, In late December,
authorities moved Osceola, five other chiefs and 116 warriors, and
eighty-two women and children to Fort Moultrie at Charleston, South
Carolina. There, Osceola, already in bad health because of chronic
malaria, sickened and died of quinsy aggravated by malaria on January
30, 1838. Frequent if sometimes half-hearted efforts to return his
remains to Florida have failed. Had he not been captured under a flag
of truce and sent away to die in prison, he might have died as
ignominiously as many of his brethren. As it is his place as the most
romantic if not the most heroic fiqure in the annals of the war seems
secure.
Twenty years after the incident so great was the criticism that Jesup
found himself compelled to offer an explanation for his actions. He
argued that Indians knew he would treat with them only on terms of
surrender and migration, that Osceola had only a safe conduct through
the lines, that on Osceola's part the white flag was only a ruse to get
near enough to the camp to attack it, but to his surprise he found it
reinforced by Jesup's arrival, that Osceola had not hesitate to violate
truces, and, finally, that capture was more humane than letting the
Indians go back into the woods to be hunted down again.
General Jesup had a fully developed plan of campaigning for the winter
of 1837-1838 that would push the Seminoles farther southward into the
peninsula and leave the north Florida frontier relatively free of Indian
danger. General Persifor Smith was to operate from the Caloosahatchee
River to Cape Sable. Colonel Zachary Taylor was responsible for the
region from that river northward to the Withlacoochee and eastward
across the peninsula north of Lake Okeechobee. Others who were to play
less conspicuous roles guarded Middle Florida. Major William Lauderdale
east of the Saint Johns operated from Picolata to Lake Monroe and
General Hernandez on the upper Saint Johns. The navy in the person of
Lieutenant Levin M. Powell, who sailed southward from Fort Pierce as far
as Jupiter Inlet, cooperated by providing reconnaissance and supply
services, In the midst of these preparations for a forward movement on
all fronts, Colonel Shelburne appeared with five chiefs to try again to
negotiate for the peaceable withdrawal of the remaining Seminoles.
Meanwhile Colonel Taylor had moved from Tampa at the end of November
with 800 regulars, 180 Missouri volunteers, some Florida volunteers, and
seventy Delaware and a few Shawnee Indians. They reached the Kissimmee
River, bridged it, and constructed Fort Gardiner. Having scouted the
river and the northern shore of the lake they moved against a
concentration of Indians reported to be gathering northeast of the lake.
On Christmas Day, Taylor found some 400 Indians awaiting attack in a
carefully prepared position. They were in a hammock with about a half
mile of swamp in front of them. The saw grass was five feet high and
the mud and water three feet deep. The Indians had cut the grass near
the hammock to make firing more accurate and had notched the trees to
rest and steady their rifles. Coacoochee, who had escaped from the fort
at Saint Augustine only the previous month, held the left with eighty of
his followers. Taylor had about twice as many men who were already
tired from the day's march, but he decided to charge through the swamp
directly at the enemy. The Indians inflicted relatively heavy damage
but could not withstand the pressure of the heavier force. The
Seminoles lost eleven killed and fourteen wounded and killed twenty-six
whites and wounded 112 in a fight that lasted from about a half hour
past noon to three o'clock. If the Battle of Withlacoochee two years
earlier had convinced the Indians that they could stop any force the
whites sent against them, this largest of all battles of the war must
have changed their minds completely, for there was never again in the
more than four years of fighting yet to be done a piched battle
involving any considerable number of combatants. And Zachary Taylor
emerged as the only commander who had defeated the Seminoles in a major
engagement.
On January 18, 1838, General Jesup moved from the headwaters of the
Saint Johns toward Jupiter Inlet, which he reached the next day after
encountering some resistance as he was crossing the Loxahatchee River.
He erected Fort Jupiter, little more than a stockade, and waited until
February 5 for supplies to come by water. Before he was ready to take
to the field again, Brigader General Abram Eustis, apparently supported
by other senior officers, came forward with a proposal to end the war by
allowing the Indians to remain on a small reservation in the southern
peninsula. Jesup reluctantly consented to give it a try but said he
must have the approval of Washington for such a plan.
While a Seminole Negro went out to invite the Indian chiefs in for the
parley, a messenger carried the proposal to Washington. The Indians
began to come in, saying they too were tired of the struggle, and
gathered near the army at Fort Jupiter to await the return of the
messenger. When a negative decision arrived on the seventeenth, Jesup
found himself unable to communicate it to the Indians and see them
return to the forests where he would be compelled to continue to hunt
them down. Accordingly he ordered General Twiggs to surround and
capture them, thereby taking at one time 513 Indians, of which 151 were
warriors. The severity of the blow to the Indians to the region was
such that another 360 were induced to come in and join the move to the
West. The storm of protest over the violation of the flag of truce was
louder than the previous year, but Jesup stuck to his insistence that it
was more humane than fighting.
The dwindling number of Indians continued to hold out against pressure
to move. Major Lauderdale with a company oi the Third Artillery and 200
Tennessee Volunteers explored the country southward and established Fort
Lauderdale on New River. On April 24, Colonel William S. Harney found a
group of Indians some twenty miles below Biscayne Bay who fled into the
Everglades after a brief skirmish. On the west coast, Surgeon General
Thomas Lawson with 248 men probed the coast from the Caloosahatchee to
Cape Sable, seeking to break up any contact Indians might have with
foreign sources of aid. He found no Indians but established Fort
Poinsett at East Cape to continue the watch.
In April 1839, General Alexander Macomb, commanding general of the army,
came to Florida to take personal charge of the military operations,
hoping to end the war and restore the prestige of the service. General
Jesup had already warned that Florida was no place to make a military
reputation, and he defended himself against his critics by pointing out
that during his stay nearly 2,400 Indians had been captured, killed, or
persuaded to migrate to the West. He concluded: "I and my predecessors
in command have not only been required to fight and beat the enemy but
to go into an unexplored widerness and capture them. Neither Wayne,
Harrison nor Jackson was required to do this..." Jesup's tenure in
Florida was longer than any other. He did not bring the war to a
conclusion, but during that year and a half many of the principal chiefs
and their followers were captured or persuaded to come in and give
themselves up, and hostilities on the same scale would never occur
again.
General Macomb began by inviting the chiefs to come to Fort King for a
conference to discuss ways to end the war. He offered a reservation
south of the Peace River which turned out, whether Macomb intended it or
not, to be a temporary solution. He sought to remove the Indians from
any contact with whites by establishing a trading post for them on the
Caloosahatchee River. James Baxter Dahlam and four civilian emplotees
to set up the store, and Lieutenant Colonel Harney with twenty-eight
dragoons and three civilians to guard it, worked at their task on one
side of the river while a large body of apparently peaceable Indians
gathered on the other side. Early on the morning of July 23, 1839, the
fourth day of their stay, a force of about 160 Indians led by Chekika,
chief of the "Spanish Indians," attacked the camp. The raiders killed
Dahlam and one of his clerks, captured three civilians and a sergeant
named Simmons, and killed thirteen soldiers and three other civilians,
while fourteen soldiers including Harney escaped by way of the river,
possibly only because the Indians stopped to loot the camp. Harney
blamed Secretary of War Joel R. Poinsett, who had somehow allowed the
Indians to learn that they were not to be allowed to remain in Florida
but had not notified him.
This was the first appearance in the war of the isolated Spanish
Indians, but they continued active. On August 7, 1840, Chekika led
seventeen canoeloads of Indians in a raid on Indian Key in which they
killed Dr. Henry Perrine and six others and looted and burned the store
of Jacob Housman and other buildings. The Indians had moved southward
through the Everglades from an island just below present-day Forty Mile
Bend on the Tamiami Trail west of Miami. Colonel Harney, then stationed
at Fort Dallas, willingly accepted the assignment to seek out and
eliminate Chekika and his band. On December 4, 1840, ninety men in
sixteen canoes left the fort and made their way across the Everglades,
surprised Chekika on his island hideout, and killed him. Harney had
developed a technique that made it possible to follow the Indians to
their most remote hiding places. This raid produced one of the first
accounts of a trip across the southern Everglades. Instead of returning
to Fort Dallas by way of the Everglades and the Miami River, he moved
southwestward to the Gulf of Mexico by way of what has since been known
as Harney River, where larger craft picked up the members of the
expedition and brought them back to Fort Dallas.
General Macomb retired from the field and left the leadership to General
Taylor, who suffered a severe attack of fever late in 1839 and left
Florida on May 11, 1840. Taylor, an old hand at the Florida war,
achieved notoriety by importing bloodhounds from Cuba to track down
Seminoles. The thirty-three dogs and five handlers cost several
thousand dollars and trailed no Seminoles in the watery widerness but
did bring upon the general a nationwide protest against the inhumanity
of using dogs to catch Indians. Taylor shared the professional
soldiers' dislike of militia and made himself unpopular by charging that
Floridians wanted only to prolong the war and "partake of the government
expenditures."
General Walker K. Armistead, who succeeded Taylor, found 5,000 soldiers
in his command who continued to catch an occasional Indian and bring
pressure enough upon others to induce them to give up the fight. His
year of command netted about 450 Indians. The center of the conflict
had moved steadily southward, but a spectacular Indian raid occurred in
north Florida in 1840. On May 23 they fired on a company of actors en
route to Saint Augustine on the road from Picolata on the Saint Johns,
killed four of them, and stole all of their finery. The August 7 raid
at Indian Key in South Florida also demonstrated a considerable
capability to deliver a hard blow.
At the end of March in 1841 all citizen soldiers were discharged, and
the war was assumed to be drawing to a close. On August 31 Colonel
William J. Worth relieved Armistead. In November Coacoochee, for several
years the most aggressive of the Indian leaders, gave up the fight and
brought in some 300 of his followers. A year later, on August 14, Worth
announced that the war had come to an end. In conference at Fort Brooke
and Cedar Key he had reached an agreement with the remaining Seminoles
to occupy a temporary reservation from the mouth of the Peace River to
the fork of its southern branch, to the head of Lake Istokpoga, down the
Kissimmee to Lake Okeechobee, and through the Everglades to Shark River.
Since the most of the Seminoles were already there this was but an
agreement to accept the status quo.
The six and a half years of fighting had been costly. The number of
servicemen on duty in Florida ranged from a high of 8,866 in 1837 to
3,801 in 1841. There were 1,466 deaths, including 215 officers; 328 men
were killed in action. Deaths in the navy were 69; battle deaths among
the citizen soldiers were 55 with an indeterminate number of deaths from
wounds and disease. In addition to the costs of the regular army, the
usually accepted estimate is twenty million dollars, or about the same
amount as it cost the army. Other costs were also high. Plantations,
homes, slaves, livestock, and other forms of property were destroyed or
stolen. Settlers abandoned the frontier and gathered at towns and forts
for security. The conflict helped to weaken territorial banks, deepened
the depression, and delayed statehood.
In January 1844 a report to the secretary of war listed 3,824 Indians
removed, 212 of them in the previous year after the close of
hostilities. There were other items on the credit side which are too
often overlooked. For the first time the interior was explored and
mapped. The army laid out many trails and roads. An amazing number of
forts became the nuclei of settlements that survive in place names
today. Federal payrolls, employment of civilians, rent of teams and
wagons and boats, the purchase of food and forage, and relief supplied
to refugees repeatedly brought the charge that maybe Floridians would
like to prolong the war. The Armed Occupation Act of 1842 provided
homesteads for a goodly number of settlers who might not otherwise have
moved to Florida. Florida was no longer a remote and unknown part of
the country.
The military lessons of the war, some of them learned over again, were
considerable and may be said to have relevance today in such conflicts
as the Vietnamese war was. The subtropical climate and the watery
widerness terrain with the sea on three sides made it different from
other wars and gave the navy its largest role in any Indian war.
Cooperation between the services was remarkable. Sailors and marines
did duty as foot soldiers, and the two arms of the service joined forces
in amphibious operations. While the army was developing guerrilla or
partisan style warfare, naval officers were developing small boat search
and assault tactics which enabled them and the cooperating army to carry
the war to the nervr centers of the enemy in hitherto inaccessible
areas. The naval flotilla was small and was never designated a
squadron. It served for at least half of the time under the command of
the secretary of war. When it was dissolved on August 3, 1842, it
consisted of seven vessels, fifty officers, 385 enlisted men, of whom
100 were marines, and was using 140 dugout canoes.
When Colonel Worth declared the war at an end in 1842, the informal
arrangement was hardly more than a truce, for whites would not tolerate
a permanent settlement that left Seminoles in possession of any
considerable land in the state. Worth and others had underestimated the
number of Seminoles left, fixing the number as low as 300. The Indians
did stay within the reservation lines and few whites ventured that far
south. Perhars the prospect that swamp and overflowed lands would be
turned over to the state in which they were located helps to account for
the renewed and insistent demand that the few Indians still there also
be removed. The United States government responded with efforts
designed to induce them to migrate. In 1851 Luther Blake, appointed by
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, accompanied Billy Bowlegs and other
Seminoles tu New York and Washington in a futile attempt to induce them
to emigrate. Blake finally, at a cost of more than $20,000, induced
thirty-six Indians to go West. John Casey again became the Indian agent
and brought pressure on the Indians to make them fight if they wished to
remain. Military patrols scouted the region. Surveyors laid out trails
and roads into the "reservation." In 1850 Fort Harvie was reactivated
and renamed Fort Myers. Four years later troops reactivated Forts
Denaud, Thompson, and Center on the Caloosahatchee. They also reopened
roads and forts and constructed new ones southeastward from Fort Myers.
Lieutenant George L. Hartsuff, a topographical engineer, directed much
of the surveying and reported on the land he observed. He called it fit
only for Indian habitation and practically impregnable in case of
renewal of the war. After a summer lay-off Hartsuff returned to the Big
Cypress country in early Decenber of 1855 with six mounted men, two
footsoldiers, and two wagons drawn by mules, largely on a reconnaissance
mission. They saw two Indians on the third day out, found Fort Drum
burned on the fourth, as also was Fort Shackleford on the edge of the
Everglades. After examining the situation in all directions the party
was ready to return to Fort Myers when, without warning, some
thirty-five Indians attacked the camp early in the morning on the
twentieth, killed two men and wounded four, including Hartsuff, who did
not make his way to safety until the third day. The Seminole war was
underway again.
Durrance's Company, Seminole War of 1856
Name Mustered In Mustered Out Remarks
Captain F. M. Durrance..Dec. 29,'55..............1857
Among the enlisted men were the following:
George T. Durrance.......Dec. 29, 1855...........Dec. 1857
Jesse H. Durrance..........Dec. 29, 1855...........Dec. 1857
John R. Durrance...........Dec. 29, 1855...........Dec. 1857
Joseph L. Durrance.....Dec. 29, 1855......Dec. 1857....2nd Sgt.
William Hutto Durrance....Dec. 29, 1855......Dec. 1857....Buglar
Thomas Ellis................Dec. 29, 1855.......Aug. 1856.....Corporal
Willoughby Tillis..........Dec. 29, 1855.......Aug. 1856
Willoughby Tillis was a 1st Lieut. from August 27, 1856 to 1857
Reference: SOLDIERS of FLORIDA, a compilation of soldiers in the
Seminole Indian, ihe Civil and the Spanish-American Wars, by
the Board of State Institution, approved 1903, pages 14-15.
The first raiders struck on Sarasota Bay, at the Braden Plantation and
two other places on the Manatee, attacked a wagon train in Hillsborough
County and killed three men, and attacked the home of Willoughby Tillis
near Fort Meade. In the biggest battle of the renewed conflict, a force
under Captain Francis Durrance killed fifteen Seminoles near present-day
Bowling Green. The center of the action, however, was in the Big
Cypress, and Fort Myers was the principal base of operations. Fort
Cross was added at Middle Cape and Fort Poinsett at East Cape was
reactivated. Fort Dallas and Fort Lauderdale again became scenes of
military activity. The tactical lessons learned in the second war were
applied with good effect. Constant patrols pushed the Seminoles into a
more and more limited area, found and destroyed homes and fields, but
caught few Indians. Spurred by the offer of $500 for males, $250 to
$500 for women, and $100 for children as rewards for live Seminoles,
boat companies pushed the search deeper and deeper into the swamps and
accounted for forty-one captives. In November 1857 Captain John
Parkhill's company of 110 men with Captain Richard Turner as guide
ascended the Chokoloskee, now Turner River, to its head, landed, and
marched in a north and westerly direction. On the fourth day they found
the last hiding place of the Indians. Parkhill died in ambush, but the
backbone of Indian resistance was broken when Colonel George Rogers
followed with a force of 300 men and moved through the heart of the
Indian country. Billy Bowlegs, the chief who gave the name "Bowlegs
War" to this phase of the conflict, was ready to give up the fight.
When the steamer 'Grey Cloud' left Egmont Key on May 7, 1858, on board
were thirty-eight warriors and eighty-five women and children who had
surrendered with him, plus the forty-one captives and Polly, a Seminole
women guide. Bowlegs had accepted $5,000 for himself and $2,500 for
cattle he alleged had been stolen. Each warrior received $1,000 and
each woman and child $100; the government bought any movable property
the Indians claimed.
The war was over, but not all of the Seminoles were yet gone. Another
seventy migrated the next year, but the remainder disappeared into the
Everglades and the Big Cypress, their number estimated at one to three
hundred. Floridians abandoned the demand that they be moved. The
federal Indian Service, however, continued efforts to induce them to
join their kinsmen in Indian Territory, but they showed no disposition
to give up the land which they had struggled so long to keep. When
Floridians rediscovered the Seminole in the twentieth century, he had
become an asset.
THE LAST INDIAN WAR 1855-57 AS REPORTED IN "THE FLORIDA PENINSULAR,"
TAMPA'S EARLIEST NEWSPAPER
In 1949-50 Miss Lillian Carpenter, Polk County Historian and
Genealogist, compiled articles from THE FLORIDA PENINSULAR that told of
the last Indian uprising in east Hillsborough County. From her
extracts, the ones pertaining to Captain F. M. Durrance and the Durrance
Company are included here, taken from LINEAGE OF JOSEPH DURRANCE by
Margaret Lewis Durrance and Ann Durrance Folk.
Issue of February 2, 1856:
In accordance with the tenor of the dispatch, Governor Broome received
and tendered for immediate service four volunteer companies commanded by
Messers Kendrick, Durrance, Sparkman, and Hooker, respectively.
Issue of February 16, 1856:
LATEST INDIAN NEWS!!
The only news of importance is embodied in a report received by Colonel
Monroe from Captain F. M. Durrance, in regard to a Scout made by a
detachment of twenty-five men, under the command of Lieutenant Kendrick
and Sergeant Edwards. The purpose of the Scout was to examine the road
from Fort Meade to Fort Denaud. (Fort Denaud was at Punta Rassa.)
Issue of March 1, 1856:
On the 19th inst., at Fort Meade mustered out of service of the State,
Captain Wm. B. Hooker's Company, which was on the same day mustered into
the service of the United States. On the same day and at the same
place, mustered into service of the State, Captain Francis M. Durrance's
Company - Headquarters, Fort Frazier. (Also other companies.) These
companies are composed of 88 men total, and are very efficient in all
respects.
Issue of March 29, 1856:
Volunteer Companies in the State service: Captain Francis M. Durrance,
1st Lieutenant Edward T. Kendrick, 2nd Lieutenant Alderman Carlton.
Headquarters: Fort Frazier.
Issue of May 17, 1856:
In the early part of this week, the trail of six Indians was dicovered
on Peas Creek. The latest news from that quarter informs us the Captain
Durrance, with a detachment, was in hot pursuit.
Issue of June 21, 1856:
LATEST INDIAN NEWS! FIVE MEN KILLED BY INDIANS ON PEAS CREEK!
A DESPERATE CONFLICT! SIXTEEN INDIANS KILLED
We stop the presses to insert the following official report of the
battles of Saturday and Monday, the 14th and 16th instants, which we
have been kindly furnished by General Carter. The report is true in
composition and condensed in detail:
Fort Frazier, Florida
10 a.m. June the 14th, 1856
Gen'l Carter - Sir:
I have just received intelligence of an attack by a party of Indians on
the house of Willoughby Tillis, at sunrise this morning. Lieutenant
Carlton, who happened to be at Fort Meade, on a visit to his family,
heard the reports of the guns, and, in company with six others, went to
the relief of Tillis and his family. On the approach of these men, the
Indians fled to a thicket near by. Lieutenant Carlton, with his little
band of brave men charged them, and a desperate engagement ensued.
Lieutenant Carlton and Lott Whidden, of my company, were killed, and
Daniel Carlton wounded. William Parker, of Captain Hooker's Company,
was also killed, and J. H. Hollingsworth wounded. There were three
Indians killed and seven wounded.
Later - I immediately dispatched Serg'ts Boggess and Durrance, with 15
men, to the relief of Tillis, who had maintained his position, so far;
they arrived at Tillis'half after 12 o'clock, found the family safe;
they proceeded to the battle ground, found the trail - pursued it that
evening, discovered that the Indians have re-enforced considerably, they
then came in to Fort Meade for provisions - they were on the trail early
next morning, and were re-enforced by a few men from Captain Hooker's
and a few from Captain Leslie's Companies. The Indians had taken the
creek swamp, and remained in it. The men pursued them until late that
evening, came out of the swamp and encamped for the night.
June 16 - As a small guard was left with the horses, the force was now
reduced to 19 men, who were early in the swamp in search of the enemy.
At about 10 o'clock, a camp was discovered; a charge was ordered and a
well contested battle fought. Our little band stood to their arms
manfully, charging the Indians where they were concealed under the river
bank, and shooting them not more than eight or ten feet from the muzzles
of the guns.
Robert F. Prine and George Howell, killed, and James Whidden, Wm.
Brooker, and John L. Skipper, wounded, and from the best calculation
that can be made, there were 16 or 17 Indians killed and several
wounded.
Our force consisted of Lieutenant Parker, of Captain Leslie's Company,
Sergeants Boggess and Durrance, with 12 men from my Company, three men
from Captain Hooker's and one from Captain Sparkman's Companies. My men
spoke in high terms of Lieutenant Parker as a brave and good soldier.
Some of the articles taken from the wagons on Simmons Hammock were found
on the battleground. Captain Hooker, with 23 men, Lieutenant Sparkman,
with 14 men, and Lieutenant Parker, with a small detachment from Captain
Leslie's Company, are now in pursuit of this band of savages. I am in
hopes they will be able to give a good account when they return.
I am, yours respt'y.,
F. M. Durrance, Capt. Comd'g Co. M. V.
Genr'l Jesse Carter, Special Agt.
State of Florida
P. S. This band was supposed to consist of at least 40 Indians
F. M. D.
Click on the Seminole Flag for more about the
Seminole Wars written by Chris Kimball.
