Historical Sketches of Colonial Florida

by Richard L. Campbell

The firing was incessant on both sides until May 1, when that of the British was almost entirely suspended, for the purpose of enabling the garrison to make some indispensable repairs on their works. On the second, however, the British guns were again in full play.

But the demand for repairs was so continuous and urgent as to impose a heavy tax upon the limited numbers of the besieged. Short reliefs from duty became a stern necessity, and want of rest, as well as overexertion, so impaired their strength that men were seen falling prostrate beside their guns from fatigue and exhaustion.

Galvez’s failure to storm the British works, during the silence of their guns on May 1, seemed to indicate his determination to reduce the contest to the question, how long the ammunition of the besieged would last and their artillery remain serviceable? He may, however, have regarded the suspension of the British firing as a strategem to invite an assault.

There was a vital spot in the defenses for which the Spanish shot and shell had been vainly seeking—the powder magazine. But as the gunners were without requisite information to enable them to procure its range, it was but a wild chance that a shell would strike it. That its position was not drawn from the Waldeck corporal, is an impeachment of the military sagacity of the Spanish officers, and an act of gross negligence which would have prolonged the siege indefinitely, but for an imprudence of the British commander equally as gross.

A provincial colonel for infamous conduct—of what character we are uninformed—was drummed out of the Fort, instead of being, as prudence required, carefully kept within it during the siege. The man, as should have been expected, went to the Spaniards and informed them of the condition of the garrison and defenses, and especially of the angle in which the magazine was situated. That disclosure sealed the fate of Fort George. Thenceforward, that angle became the mark of every Spanish shot and shell. For three days and nights did those searching missiles beat upon it, until at last on the morning of May 8, there occurred an explosion that shook Gage Hill to its deep foundations as though once again in the throes of an earthquake.

A yawning breach was made in the Fort. Fifty men were killed outright and as many more wounded fatally and otherwise.

At that thunder-like signal 15,000 men are marshalled for the assault. But there is no panic in Fort George. Calmly the British commander orders every gun to be charged, and many to be moved so as to sweep the breach. That work done, he hoists a white flag and sends an officer under another to the Spanish general with a communication, which doubtless had been prepared in anticipation of the conjuncture in which he at last found himself. It was an offer to capitulate upon the following terms: “The troops to march out at the breach with flying colors and drums beating, each man with six cartridges in his cartridge box; at the distance of 500 paces the arms were to be stacked; the officers to retain their swords; all the troops to be shipped as soon as possible, at the cost of the Spaniards to a British port, to be designated by the British commander, under parole not to serve against Spain or her allies, until an equal number of the same rank of Spaniards, or the troops of her allies, were exchanged by Great Britain, and the best care to be taken of the sick and wounded remaining behind, who were to be forwarded as soon as they recovered.”

Knowing that those were the terms which the gallant Dickson and Durnford had demanded and obtained at Baton Rouge and Mobile, the spirit in which General Campbell dictated the terms of the capitulation can be readily imagined. To submit to less than had been conceded to his inferior officers would be dishonor.

Galvez answered, that the terms proposed could not be conceded without modification. General Campbell replied that no modification was permissible; adding, that in case they were not conceded he would hold “the Fort to the last man.” That bold reply was followed by the consent of Galvez to the capitulation proposed by the British commander.

It would be a grateful task to record humanity or chivalry as the motive for the concession; and it would be the duty of history to assign it, in the absence of facts, inconsistent with such a conclusion. But the victor, by his own confession, has precluded such a presumption.[^[37]] In a letter of General Washington’s to Don Francisco Rendon, agent of the Spanish government in the United States, written at “Headquarters before Yorktown, twelfth of October, 1781,” occurs the following: “I am obliged by the extract of General Galvez’s letter to Count de Grasse, explaining at large the necessity he was under of granting the terms of capitulation to the garrison at Pensacola, which the commandant required. I have no doubt, from General Galvez’s well known attachment to the cause of America, that he would have refused the articles, which have been deemed exceptionable, had there not been very powerful reasons to induce his acceptance of them.”