Sustaining The Glory: Spain's Melting Pot Army in America, 1779-1781
Chapter IV -- The Baton Rouge Campaign, pp. 44-51
Thesis by King Robinson
Significant differences of opinion exist about the nature and designation of the fortification at Baton Rouge. Was it a true fort, or merely a hastily constructed earthwork redoubt surrounded by a deep ditch and ringed with sharpened cypress stakes? Was it named Fort New Richmond, Fort Richmond, or was it named at all? How much damage did the Spanish bombardment inflict? Did the Spanish only repair and renovate this structure, or did they build an entirely new facility? The answers to these and similar questions cannot be determined with certainty, but a careful examination of period documents does shed some light on the mystery.
On 22 September 1779, Lt. Col. Alexander Dickson, the British commander at Baton Rouge, wrote to his superior concerning the circumstances for removing his troops from Fort Bute to the Baton Rouge redoubt. He used that term throughout the letter. A redoubt is defined as “small and usually temporary defensive fortification.”[1] He described the site where it was built as “a large quantity of cleared ground,” but cited no existing structures. The engineer who supervised the construction, Capt. John J. Graham, called it a field redoubt, and also indicated the site as merely “cleared ground” prior to construction. He distinguished it from the “Stockade Fort” at Manchac.[2] Andrew C. Albrecht mentions that “the fort seems to have developed from a mere field redoubt that was hurriedly thrown up” on the Watts plantation.[3] Dickson also states that the redoubt was begun on or about 30 July 1779, and subsequently invested by Galvez on 12 September, a period of slightly more than six weeks, hardly a period of time in which to construct a formal Vauban-style fortress.[4]
Considered together, these facts paint a picture of a less substantial structure than what Galvez described in his report of the action to his uncle, the Minister of the Indies. The governor depicted a strong configuration with tamped earthen walls with a protective circle of palisades, surrounded by a ditch nine feet deep and eighteen feet wide and ramparts mounting thirteen cannon. Albert W. Haarmann called it “the strongest post on the Mississippi.” The process of determination is complicated by the lack of a plan of the fort at the time it was captured. A map dated 27 February 1779, by Julian Alvarez, Galvez’s artillery officer, shows a roughly square enclosure with a diamond shaped bastion at each corner. The inscription on the map reads, “Campaign Fort for Louisiana.” Whether this document refers to the facility at Baton Rouge is unclear. Another map dated “circa 1784,” purports to show plans for the renovation of the fort at Baton Rouge. It shows a rather well-defined star-shaped trace enclosing a number of buildings.[5] Helen Parkhurst writes that Don Pedro Favrot, whom Galvez named commandant of Baton Rouge after the battle, spent more than two years repairing the structure, now named Fort San Carlos, at a cost of 2,472 pesos.[6] That sum hardly seems sufficient to repair and modify, much less to build an entirely new structure. If the fort consisted of only earthwork walls and cypress stakes, the sum may be appropriate. However, the amount of damage that Galvez’s artillery is said to have caused would be diminished with this type of structure. A more likely cause for capitulation by Dickson was loss of life rather than cannonade damage.
In 1796, Victor Collot sketched a map of “the Spanish Fort at Baton Rouge.” It depicts a six-pointed star in a very similar orientation to the 1784 map. In 1797, Carlos Trudeau drew a map showing a bastion trace similar to the Julian Alvarez sketch of 1779. A pentagon trace with a salient point facing east appears on a map dated 1798. An 1805 map by Carlos Pintado, and one in 1817 by the U.S. Engineering Department are strikingly similar and reflect deterioration of star trace fortifications.[7] The balance of evidence favors a star-shaped trace as the final configuration. The initial shape is not definable with any certainty. Most probably, the English fort was just repaired, modified, and renamed Fort San Carlos.
The name for the fort is another puzzle. Various writers have referred to it both as “Fort New Richmond” and as “Fort Richmond.” The origin of the New Richmond version appears to come from an attempt to link it with a British effort to rename Baton Rouge as “New Richmond’ following Britain’s acquisition of the territory in 1763. The evidence for this effort is sketchy at best. William Bartram referred to the Baton Rouge area as “New Richmond” during his travels in the area circa 1775.[8] In May, 1777, British trader John Fitzpatrick, the “Merchant of Manchac,” mentioned “Richmond settlement,” in a letter to one of his trading partners.[9] However, a careful review of other British correspondence relating to the area during the period 1777-81, and the minutes of the Council of West Florida from 1767-78 reveals no mention of either New Richmond, Fort New Richmond, or Fort Richmond. If the effort was made to rename the area, it did not receive popular or official support. Otherwise, one of the names would certainly have appeared in official documents. In fact, the structure at Baton Rouge is always referred to in these documents as a redoubt or a fort with no associated name. Kenneth Drude, in his 1968 article “Fort Baton Rouge,” cites a 1943 newspaper article which said, ”Contrary to most published accounts, Baton Rouge did not have its name changed to New Richmond; rather the fort built in 1779 was designated Fort Richmond, while the city kept its present name.”[10] Considering the fact that the fortress was not necessarily complete when Galvez invested it on 12 September, one might wonder if a name had even been assigned at all, at least officially.[11]
A similar situation prevails with the name of the settlement outside Fort Bute at Manchac. Robin F. A. Fabel asserts that Manchac was called “Harwich,” but Cecil Johnson points out that it was a “proposed” township which originated in a 13 July 1772 letter from Governor Chester to Lord Hillsborough. In a second letter dated August 1775, Chester asked that the “long delayed town of Harwich be marked out.” This evidence suggests that no progress had been made toward that goal. The town was eventually laid out and some tracts sold to individuals, but once again, the idea appears never to have found popular support or approval. Eventually, fifty-eight lots were sold, mostly to prominent citizens of Pensacola or the Manchac area, probably for land speculation purposes. The 14 January 1777 minutes of the West Florida Council indicate that a committee was formed to supervise the expenditure of the money collected from the sale of these lots. Before Harwich could be built, the conquest of the province by Spanish arms rendered the plans irrelevant.[12] All researched British correspondence during the period of Galvez’s conquests refers to the village as “Manchac.” [13]
[1] Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed., s.v. “redoubt.”
[2] Dart, “West Florida,” 264-5.
[3] Andrew C. Albrecht, “The Origin and Early Settlement of Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” Louisiana Historical Quarterly 28, (1945), 63-4.
[4] Dart, “West Florida,” 264.
[5] Galvez to Galvez, 16 October 1779, no. 325, Despatches; Haarmann, “Spanish Conquest,” 111; Julian Alvarez, “Campaign fort for Louisiana, February 27, 1779,” in Jack D.L. Holmes, “Photographic copies of 44 Louisiana maps, made from originals in Spain,” 1963, (Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University); Leroy Ellis Willie, West Florida and Its People, (by the Author, 2000)64.
[6] Parkhurst, “Don Pedro Favrot,” 697; Kenneth Drude, “Fort Baton Rouge,” Louisiana Studies 7, 1967, 263.
[7] Drude, “Fort Baton Rouge,” 262.
[8] William Bartram, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, A facsimile of the 1792 London edition embellished with its nine original plates, (Savannah, GA: Beehive Press, 1973), 427.
[9] Dalrymple, Margaret Fisher, The Merchant of Manchac: The Letterbooks of John Fitzpatrick, 1768-1790, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), 334.
[12] Robin F.A. Fabel, “Boom in the Bayous: Land Speculation and Town Planning in the Florida Parishes under British Rule,” in Samuel C. Hyde, Jr. ed., A Fierce and Fractious Frontier, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004), 48; Johnson, British West Florida, 138-57.
[13] The sources researched included multiple volumes of Kenneth Davies’ Documents of the American Revolution, James A. Padgett’s publication of the minutes of the West Florida Council, and Cecil Johnson’s British West Florida, plus numerous other pieces of correspondence found in various related books and articles.
