Historic Events of Colonial Days

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The Spaniards again marched up the road and camped near where the English lay hid in ambush. A noise startled them and they seized their arms. The men in ambush fired, many Spaniards fell, and the rest fled in confusion. As a Spanish sergeant said, "The woods were so full of Indians that the devil himself could not get through them." For a long time the place was known as the "Bloody Marsh." Oglethorpe marched his troops over the road to within two miles of the main Spanish encampment, and there halted for the night.

The enemy withdrew to the ruined fort at St. Simons, where they were sheltered by the guns of their fleet. Oglethorpe went back to Frederica, leaving outposts to watch the Spaniards. There he found that his provisions were running low, and he knew that no more could be brought in since the enemy blocked the sound. He told the people, however, that if they had to abandon their settlement they could escape through Alligators Creek and the canal that had been cut through Generals Island, and he assured his little army of 800 men that they were more than a match for the whole Spanish expedition.

Presently Spanish galleys came up the river; but Indians, hid in the long grasses, prevented the soldiers from landing. When they approached the town the batteries opened such a hot fire that the galleys fled down-stream much faster than they had come up.

English prisoners, escaping from the Spaniards, began to bring word that the enemy were much discouraged. Many Spaniards had fallen sick, and the soldiers from Cuba were wrangling with the men from Florida. Oglethorpe therefore planned a surprise for the enemy and marched to within a mile of their camp. He was about to attack when one of his soldiers, a Frenchman who had volunteered but was in reality a spy, fired his gun and ran from the general's ranks.

The Frenchman was not caught, and the general knew that he would tell the Spaniards how few English soldiers there were. So Oglethorpe tried a trick of his own, hoping to make the Frenchman appear to be a double spy. He hired a Spanish prisoner to carry a letter to the spy. "The letter was in French," Oglethorpe later said, "as if from a friend, telling him that he had received the money, and would strive to make the Spaniards believe the English were very weak; that he should undertake to pilot their boats and galleys, and then bring them into the woods where the hidden batteries were. That if he could bring about all this, he should have double the reward, and that the French deserters should have all that had been promised them.

"The Spanish prisoner got into their camp," Oglethorpe said, "and was immediately carried before the general. He was asked how he escaped and whether he had any letters; but denying this, was searched and the letter found. And he, upon being pardoned, confessed that he had received money to carry it to the Frenchman, for the letter was not directed. The Frenchman, of course, denied knowing anything of the contents of the letter, or having received any money or had any correspondence with me. Notwithstanding which, a council of war was held and they decided the Frenchman a double spy, but the general would not suffer him to be executed, having been employed by himself."

While the Spaniards were still in doubt as to the strength of Oglethorpe's forces some English ships arrived off the coast. This decided the Spaniards to leave, and they burned the barracks at St. Simons and took to their ships in such haste that they left behind some of their cannon and provisions.

Hearing that ships had been sighted Oglethorpe sent an officer in a boat with a letter to their commander. But when the officer embarked he found no ships were to be seen. Later the general learned that one of the vessels sighted came from South Carolina, and that the officer in command had orders to see if the Spanish fleet had taken possession of the fort at St. Simons, and if it had to sail back to Charleston at once. Here was further proof that the plucky governor of Georgia could expect little assistance from the sister colony on the north.

By now some of the Spanish ships were out at sea, and others had landed their soldiers at St. Andrews in a temporary camp. A couple of days later twenty-eight of their ships sailed up to Fort William and called upon the garrison to surrender. The English officer there answered that he would not surrender the fort and defied the Spaniards to take it. The latter tried; they landed men, who were driven off by the guns of soldiers hidden in the sand-dunes, their ships fired on the fort, but were disabled by the return-fire of the Georgia batteries. After a battle of three hours the Spaniards withdrew from the scene and returned to their base at St. Augustine.