The Spanish struck first in this conflict that took its name from the mutilation of a British seaman's ear. Yamassee Indians attacked the English fort on Amelia Island, killing two men. Oglethorpe immediately led a force of two hundred soldiers on a retaliatory raid south of the St. Johns River. In January of 1740, a second raid captured Fort Pupo, seventeen miles northwest of St. Augustine. With the escalation of hostilities, Oglethorpe began to increase his forces. He recruited two ranger troops to serve as scouts, and commissioned John Mohr McIntosh as captain of the Highland Independent Company of Foot of the Darien Militia. But more importantly, he finally convinced a reluctant and thrifty Carolina assembly to aid in an attack on St. Augustine. The Carolinians raised a regiment to serve for four months. To speed up recruitment, Oglethorpe contributed £4,000 of his own funds.

In May of 1740, all was ready. Oglethorpe's forces numbered almost 1,000 men, including his regular troops of the 42nd Regiment, the rangers and the Highland Independent Company, along with some five hundred Indians. He had four Royal Navy men-of-war, one sloop, and several privateers to transport his army south. Opposing him were some six hundred Spanish soldiers scattered along the outposts and guarding the main fortification of Fort San Marcos at St. Augustine.

Oglethorpe's forces advanced toward St. Augustine to establish siege batteries. Meanwhile, a small, mobile force of Highlanders, Indians, and British regulars was left north of St. Augustine as a blocking force based at Fort Mosa, named from a village of run-away Carolina slaves located nearby. Oglethorpe had placed Colonel John Palmer of South Carolina in command of the hundred or so troops, but the chain of command was not made clear; bickering erupted among the officers of the unit. Orders were not carried out; inadequate guards were posted. When three hundred Spaniards attacked at dawn on June 15th, the English were woefully ill prepared. Virtually the entire command was killed, wounded or captured. In the Highland company alone, the battle left eight widows, twenty-three orphans, and over thirty men buried in Florida; the company's captain, John McIntosh, was sent to Spain in chains.

After the debacle at Fort Mosa, Oglethorpe laid siege to St. Augustine, but a Spanish relief expedition was allowed to slip through the British naval blockade. The Royal Navy removed any chance of success when the commander of the fleet gave Oglethorpe an ultimatum that he would leave by July 5th due to the impending hurricane season. Reluctantly, Oglethorpe ordered a withdrawal in early July, acknowledging defeat.

The Barracks, Fort Frederica

During the siege of St. Augustine, Oglethorpe suffered from a debilitating fever, and the sickness was to linger for several months after his return to Frederica. The General was, no doubt, suffering as much from the stress of dealing with the blow struck to his pride and self-confidence as from the fever itself. After recovering from his illness, Oglethorpe concentrated most of the 42nd Regiment on St. Simons Island. Fort Frederica was strengthened, and four companies were stationed at Delegal's Fort and at nearby Fort St. Simons. The forts were connected to the main fortification at Frederica by a crude path, called the "Military Road", hacked through the thick woods and undergrowth. Both forts were supported by infantry trenches and a dozen cannon. Clapboard huts were built to house the soldiers and their families on the south end of the island. Death, disease and desertion, however, had reduced the regiment to little more than half strength.

Lt. William Horton was sent to England in 1740 to request more funds to increase the regiment. The government agreed to fund an additional grenadier company, and Horton was named its captain. Oglethorpe also commissioned Mark Carr as a captain of a marine company of boatmen. Carr had to travel as far as Virginia and Maryland to recruit his company which manned two scout boats. Later, another company was formed under Lt. Noble Jones, an independent crew of the scout boat Frederica. To guard against Spanish privateers, Oglethorpe acquired a schooner and two sloops.

While Oglethorpe was attempting to shore up his little army after the defeat at the gates of St. Augustine, events outside of Georgia had shifted the momentum of the war to Spain. King Philip, encouraged by British defeats at Cartagena, Columbia and Santiago, Cuba, was ready to assume the offensive in Georgia. He ordered the governor of Cuba to rampage along the Georgia and Carolina coast and lay waste to the countryside. Governor Montiano of Florida was appointed Commanding General with St. Simons as his first objective. Montiano organized a force of about two thousand men composed of: two battalions of infantry; a regiment of dragoons; a detachment of Cuban gunners; six companies of provisional troops from St. Augustine; two battalions of militia; six independent companies, two of which were runaway South Carolina slaves; scouts and Indians.

On the 20th of June, the Spanish fleet sailed from St. Augustine. It was a formidable force of fifty-two men-of-war, schooners, sloops, galleys, half-galleys, piraguas and other small boats. Although they became scattered en route, the lead element anchored off St. Simons Island June 22, 1742. Oglethorpe himself was almost captured by the Spanish galleys as he led reinforcements to Cumberland Island.

On July 4th, the main fleet of about thirty-six vessels anchored just outside St. Simons Sound, no doubt striking fear in the hearts of every man, woman and child of Frederica. Oglethorpe immediately assembled all his forces and armed all the able-bodied settlers, indentured servants and volunteers. He promised lavish presents to entice the Indians to fight, but few did. Altogether, his forces totaled about five hundred men and included a guard sloop, guard schooner, merchant frigate and eight recently arrived supply boats.

On the afternoon of July 5th, the mighty Spanish fleet attacked with the incoming tide, fighting its way furiously through the thin gauntlet of British ships and the cannon of Fort St. Simons. After fierce fighting ( often hand-to-hand as the Spanish unsuccessfully attempted to board several British ships ( the Spanish fleet anchored in St. Simons Sound and began landing troops a mile and a half northwest of the fort.

As the Spanish were landing, Oglethorpe evacuated the southern end of St. Simons Island. After spiking the cannon, destroying equipment and burning the boats too damaged to escape to South Carolina, the soldiers retreated with their families up the Military Road northward to Frederica.

The Spanish quickly occupied Fort St. Simons. Montiano sent out two reconnaissance patrols on July 7th that, stumbling upon one another, joined forces to explore the Military Road. About 1-1/2 miles from Frederica, near Gulley Hole Creek, they were spotted by Oglethorpe's rangers, one of whom was killed in the ensuing melee. The others raced back to warn Oglethorpe. He mounted his horse, commanded the Highland company to follow, and charged out of the gate.

With a few Highlanders and Indians who could keep up with him, Oglethorpe plunged into the midst of the Spanish, capturing two with his sword. The rest were chased about 3-1/2 miles back down the Military Road, where Oglethorpe halted to wait for reinforcements. In this brief but savage encounter, the Spanish lost thirty-six men, killed, captured and missing.

Oglethorpe then decided to position a small delaying force across the Military Road to buy time to assemble his forces for the final defense of Frederica. At a point where the road skirted the marsh, Oglethorpe placed Captain Demere's regulars, numbering about sixty men, on one side of the road, and forty-five of the Highland company with rangers and Indians on the other. The British threw up piles of brush and logs, and waited for the Spanish.

Meanwhile, Captain Antonio Barba was ordered to lead three companies of grenadiers - about two hundred men - up the Military Road to extract the scouting party routed by Oglethorpe. When the grenadiers reached the marsh and the causeway crossing it, the concealed British opened fire. Several Spaniards were killed in the first volley, but Captain Barba coolly formed his men in a battle line in the fringe of trees along the marsh's edge. The Spaniards were soon pouring a heavy fire upon the British. In the smoke, noise, confusion, and with wet powder caused by a gray drizzle, Captain Demere and most of his regulars broke and ran, abandoning the Highland company and rangers to their fate. Oglethorpe, upon hearing the firing, rushed toward the battle. Meeting Demere and the fleeing regulars, he immediately ordered them to return to the marsh, ignoring the news that all was lost.

By the time Oglethorpe reached the marsh, the fighting was over. Lt. Sutherland's platoon and Lt. Mackay's Highlanders and rangers had held fast. But the Spanish, too, had fought bravely, retreating in good order only after running out of ammunition - with the loss of less than a dozen men. Although the Spanish casualties were light, Montiano was stunned by two defeats on the same day along that narrow road. The morale of the Spaniards collapsed.

The Magazine, Fort Frederica

The events of the next few days would mark this skirmish, of almost insignificant numbers as battles are measured, as the high-water mark of the Spanish invasion. But as the years passed and the men who fought that day would relate the story to their grandchildren, it would be recalled as the day the marsh ran red with Spanish blood - the Battle of Bloody Marsh.

Montiano was reluctant to attack Frederica via the Military Road again. He decided to attempt a river attack, but two half-galleys were driven back by cannon fire from the fort, and Oglethorpe himself led a hot pursuit in the scout boats.

On the evening of July 12th, Oglethorpe decided to take the initiative. He led five hundred men on a night attack of Fort St. Simons. Unfortunately, a French seaman in Oglethorpe's party fired a warning musket shot and deserted to the Spanish camp. With the advantage of surprise lost, Oglethorpe and his men returned to Frederica.

The next day, Oglethorpe initiated a clever ruse to confuse the Spanish by sending a letter via a Spanish prisoner to the French deserter implying that he was in Oglethorpe's pay and reinforcements were on the way. As Oglethorpe had anticipated, the letter was turned over to Montiano. Although the simple trick did not dupe the Spanish general, it did compound his indecision. When five ships, unaware of the fighting, were sighted on the horizon, the Spanish assumed they might be the vanguard of a larger fleet that would trap them on the island. Montiano ordered an immediate retreat. As they withdrew, Major Horton's plantation was burned on Jekyll Island and Fort Prince William was bombarded on Cumberland Island.

Thus ended Spain's final effort to regain her colonial empire north of Florida. The War of Jenkins' Ear would eventually be settled on the battlefields of Europe, and within two decades Spain would lose her tenuous hold on Florida itself.

It had been a decade since Oglethorpe had first set sail for Georgia, and his personal fortune and estate reflected his neglect. He had spent some £60,000 toward the defense of the colony, and his personal attention was needed in England to settle the account. Also, a lieutenant colonel of the regiment, who had returned to England in 1742 after disputes with Oglethorpe, pressed nineteen charges against his former commanding officer. Oglethorpe was ordered home to face a court-martial, and never saw Georgia again.

He returned to England in triumph, pled his monetary case before the House of Commons, and was awarded £66,109,13.10. The military charges against him were dismissed, and Oglethorpe began the second half of his life in which Georgia played very little part. In 1744, he married a wealthy widow and began to live the life of a country gentleman and a member of Parliament. But as his long life of eighty-nine years drew to a close, Oglethorpe liked nothing better than to tell again and again the tales of his glorious adventure in Georgia.

The English at Frederica

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