West Indies and Gulf Coast campaigns
Encyclopedia : W : WE : WES : West Indies and Gulf Coast campaigns
| West Indies campaign |
|---|
| Nassau – St. Lucia – Grenada – Martinique – Fort Royal – St. Kitts – The Saintes |
| Gulf Coast campaign |
|---|
| Fort Bute – Baton Rouge – Fort Charlotte – St. Louis – Mobile – Pensacola |
The West Indies and Gulf Coast campaigns were operations during the American Revolutionary War in the general region of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf Coast of North America. The area saw extensive action, particularly after France and Spain entered the war on the side of the United States. Spain captured East Florida and West Florida during the war; most of the other action took place in and around the islands of the Lesser Antilles.
Nassau, 1776
- Further information: Battle of Nassau
France enters the war, 1778–1779
The approach of winter made a naval campaign on the coast of North America dangerous. The operations of naval forces in the New World were largely dictated by the facts that from June to October are the hurricane months in the West Indies, while from October to June includes the stormy winter of the northern coast.On 4 November 1788, French Admiral Charles Hector, comte d'Estaing sailed for the West Indies, to the surprise and consternation of the Americans, who hoped to launch operations against Halifax and Newfoundland. On the same day, Commodore William Hotham was dispatched from New York to reinforce the British fleet in the West Indies. On the 7th of September the French governor of Martinique, the Marquis de Bouille, had surprised the British island of Dominica. Admiral Samuel Barrington, the British admiral in the Leeward Islands, had retaliated by seizing Santa Lucia on the 13th and 14th of December after the arrival of Hotham from North America. D'Estaing, who followed Hotham closely, was beaten off in two feeble attacks on Barrington at the Cul-de-Sac of Santa Lucia on the 15th of December.
On January 6, 1779 Admiral Byron reached the West Indies. During the early part of this year the naval forces in the West Indies were mainly employed in watching one another. But in June, while Byron had gone to Antigua to guard the trade convoy on its way home, d'Estaing first captured St Vincent, and then on the 4th of July Grenada. Admiral Byron, who had returned, sailed in hopes of saving the island, but arrived too late. An indecisive action was fought off Grenada on the 6 July 1779. The war now died down in the West Indies. Byron returned home in August. D'Estaing, after co-operating unsuccessfully with the Americans in an attack on Savannah, in September also returned to Europe.
San Juan expedition, 1780
After Spain entered the war, Major General John Dalling, the British governor and commander-in-chief of Jamaica, proposed in 1780 an expedition to the Spanish province of Nicaragua. The goal was to sail up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua and capture the town of Granada, which would effectively cut Spanish America in half as well as provide potential access to the Pacific Ocean. Because of disease and logistical problems, the expedition proved to be a costly debacle.This account follows John Sugden, Nelson: A Dream of Glory, 1758–1797, ch. VII.
The expedition sailed from Jamaica on 3 February 1780, escorted by twenty-one year-old Captain Horatio Nelson in the Hinchinbroke. (It is primarily because of the involvement of Nelson—the future British national hero—that this expedition is still remembered.) Nelson was the highest ranking officer present, but his authority was limited to naval operations. The overall commander was Captain (local rank of colonel) John Polson of the 60th Regiment, who recognized young Nelson's abilities and worked closely with him. Polson had about three to four hundred regulars of the 60th and the 79th Regiments, about 300 men of the Loyal Irish Corps raised by Dalling, as well as several hundred local recruits, including blacks and Miskito Indians.
After many delays, the expedition began to move up the San Juan River on 17 March 1780. On 9 April, Nelson—in the first hand-to-hand combat of his career—led an assault which captured a Spanish battery on the island of Bartola. Five miles upstream was Fort San Juan, with about 150 armed defenders and 86 others, which was besieged beginning on 13 April. Due to poor planning and lost supplies, the British soon began to run low on ammunition for the cannons as well as rations for the men. After the tropical rains started on 20 April, men began to sicken and die, probably from malaria and dysentery, and perhaps typhoid fever.
Nelson was one of the first to become ill, and he was shipped downriver on 28 April, the day before the Spanish surrendered the fort. About 450 British reinforcements arrived on 15 May, but the blacks and the Indians abandoned the expedition because of illness and discontentment. Although Dalling persisted in trying to gather reinforcements, sickness continued to take a heavy toll, and the expedition was abandoned on 8 November 1780. The Spanish reoccupied the fort after the British departure. In all, more than 2,500 men died, which "made the San Juan expedition the costliest British disaster of the entire war."Sugden, p. 173
Spain seizes the Gulf Coast
Before entering the war, Spain had quietly provided supplies and finances to the American rebels. Aid was also given to George Rogers Clark in his attempt to defeat the British in the Mississippi Valley.
After Spain declared war against Great Britain in June of 1779, Count Bernardo de Gálvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, seized three British Mississippi River outposts: Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Natchez. Gálvez then captured Mobile on March 14, 1780, and, in May of 1781, forced the surrender of the British outpost at Pensacola, Florida. On May 8, 1782, Gálvez captured the British naval base at New Providence in the Bahamas.
1781–1782
In the West Indies Rodney, having received news of the breach with the Netherlands early in the year, took the island of St Eustatius, which had been a great depot of contraband of war, on the 3rd of February. The British admiral was accused of applying himself so entirely to seizing and selling his booty that he would not allow his second in command, Sir Samuel Hood, who had recently joined him, to take proper measures to impede the arrival of French forces known to be on their way to Martinique. The French admiral, the count de Grasse, reached the island with reinforcements in April. Until July he was engaged in a series of skillful operations directed to menacing the British islands while he avoided being brought to battle by Rodney. In July he sailed for the coast of North America, whither he was followed in August by Hood, Rodney having been compelled to return home in ill-health.
French admiral Comte de Grasse, having rendered a vital service to the Americans in the Battle of the Chesapeake, now returned to the West Indies, whither he was followed by Hood, and resumed the attacks on the British islands. In January and February 1782 he conquered St Christopher, in spite of the most determined opposition of Hood, who with a much inferior force first drove him from his anchorage at Basseterre, and then repulsed his repeated attacks. The next purpose of the French was to combine with the Spaniards for an attack on Jamaica. Sir George Rodney, having returned to his command with reinforcements, baffled this plan by the series of operations which culminated in the Battle of the Saintes of April 12, 1782. No further operations of note occurred in the West Indies.
See also
Notes
References
- Sugden, John. Nelson: A Dream of Glory, 1758–1797. New York: Holt; London: Jonathan Cape, 2004. ISBN 0-224-06097-X.
Further reading
- Chavez, Thomas E. Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002. ISBN 0826327931.
- Tuchman, Barbara. The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1988. ISBN 0394553330.
External links
- ["West Indies Score Card during the American War for Independence"], details the changes in possession of various islands during the war; includes maps.
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