Holy cow! History — how one cannon shot changed history

J. Mark Powell

Submitted photo

All the fort’s barrels of gunpowder were stacked inside a structure called the powder magazine. The defenders were ready for a fight. Then it happened. Beginning the bombardment in earnest, a red-hot cannonball scored a direct hit on the magazine, igniting all that gunpowder. A massive explosion ripped the little fort apart, shaking the ground and unleashing a roar that was heard in Pensacola 100 miles away.”

Of all the forgotten tales brought back to life in this column, this one may be the most obscure of all. You’ll have to dig deep into the history books to find it. Though forgotten today, it played a critical role in helping decide which nation would control what’s now the southeastern United States.

And a single cannon shot determined it.

It started during the tangled international knot that was the War of 1812. While we were battling Britain, Britain was also battling pesky Napoleon on the European continent. The Brits needed all the men they could get for their military. So, in 1814, they revived the Corps of Colonial Marines.

Basically, England extended the following offer to African-American slaves in the southern United States: fight with us, and when the war is over, you can live in freedom in any British possession in North America. Several hundred slaves took the deal and served under the Union Jack.

In fact, 300 of those Colonial Marines supported the British forces that burned Washington and tried to capture Baltimore before being repulsed at Fort McHenry. The war ended with Gen. Andrew Jackson’s spectacular victory in the January 1815 Battle of New Orleans. Which is where things get complicated.

True to their promise, the Brits helped the Colonial Marines as best they could. Although Spain owned Florida, Britain had built a stockade fort on the Apalachicola River in the panhandle. (With Spain busy contending with Napoleon, it couldn’t do anything about it.)

Hundreds of Black British veterans and their families settled in and around the fortification, leading to the fort being named Negro Fort. (It was 1815, remember.) The Brits paid off the Colonial Marines, gave them the fort and its 10 cannons, wished them well, and left. It soon became a mecca for runaway slaves and displaced Native Americans.

The war was over, but the American Southeast was still a powder keg waiting to explode. The U.S. had built Fort Scott up the same river near where modern Alabama, Georgia and Florida connect. Jackson had to keep it supplied. Going up the Apalachicola River meant violating Spanish sovereignty, and that could trigger a war. Having just come out of a two-year conflict with Britain, that was the last thing Washington wanted.

But Old Hickory didn’t mind risking it.

During one supply run, American boats stopped near Negro Fort and sent a party of sailors ashore to fill canteens. The free Blacks and Indians opened fire, killing all but one sailor.

Jackson was furious. He asked Washington for permission to seize the fort. Waiting for a reply wasn’t his style, so he decided to attack. An estimated 330 people, including women and children, were gathered inside the fort’s earthen walls.

When soldiers of the 4th U.S. Infantry surrounded the stockade, its defenders raised the British flag and a red banner signaling they would fight to the death rather than surrender.

On the afternoon of July 27, 1816, two gunboats took up position for a bombardment. A handful of cannon shots were fired to get the range. Black powder artillery is very loud, and the fort’s occupants were understandably terrified.

All the fort’s barrels of gunpowder were stacked inside a structure called the powder magazine. The defenders were ready for a fight. Then it happened.

Beginning the bombardment in earnest, a red-hot cannonball scored a direct hit on the magazine, igniting all that gunpowder. A massive explosion ripped the little fort apart, shaking the ground and unleashing a roar that was heard in Pensacola 100 miles away.

For all practical purposes, Negro Fort no longer existed. One amazing shot had determined the battle’s outcome.

An American witness wrote, “The explosion was awful, and the scene was horrible beyond description. Our first care, on arriving on the scene, was to rescue and relieve the unfortunate beings who survived the explosion. The war yells of the Indians, the cries and lamentations of the wounded, compelled the soldier to pause in the midst of victory, to drop a tear for the sufferings of his fellow human beings.”

Only 50 people in the fort survived. The other 280 were shot, burned or blown apart. No Americans were killed.

There would be more fighting and deaths until the United States gained control of Florida in 1819.

The army quickly built a fort nearby, naming it Fort Gadsden. It saw active military duty until a malaria outbreak forced the Confederates to abandon it in 1863 during the Civil War.

Florida maintains the fallen fort as a state historic site. It’s now a peaceful place on a riverbank with nothing but a few markers and the eroded remains of the later fort’s walls to remind visitors of the horror that happened there nearly 210 years earlier, all due to one single, amazing cannon shot.

Editor’s note: J. Mark Powell is a novelist, former TV journalist and diehard history buff. Have a historical mystery that needs solving? A forgotten moment worth remembering? Send it to him at HolyCow@insidesources.com. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.