The situation in Florida would become far more troubling than Smith or his officers could have predicted. Marine captain John Williams deplored being kept in an “unpleasant” and “unhealthful” situation in Florida “without the liberty of firing a gun unless we are fired upon.” Yet on the evening of September 12, 1812, his detachment of twenty-one marines and Georgia militia would have the chance to return fire. Escorting two wagons, mule teams, and pack animals west from the Patriot encampment near St. Augustine toward the U.S. supply depot at Davis Creek on the St. Johns River, the party reached Twelve Mile Swamp—named such because of its distance from the St. Johns River”without incident despite numerous opportunities for an attack. The motionless pools, darkened swamps, and dusky sky filled the American troops with apprehension. Prince Witten and his group of fifty-seven blacks and six Seminoles, all disguised as Indians, had been lying camouflaged in the dense palmettos for hours, waiting for the column of uniformed white soldiers to approach within volley range. Suddenly out of darkness, Witten screamed for his militia to fire. Almost instantly six privates in the rear of the column fell wounded. As the Americans turned to the rear several shots of the second volley hit Captain Williams, knocking him from his horse but not immediately killing him. In fact, he was shot eight times total during the engagement, dying from his wounds seventeen days later. A shot that wounded a corporal bounced into the knee of Capt. Tomlinson Fort of the Georgia militia as he tried to drag Williams to cover. Attackers armed with axes and knives swiftly pounced on the corporal, scalping and killing the soldier in front of his terrified brethren.³⁷

Witten had instructed his men to pick off the officers, pin down the men, and immobilize the wagons, and the first two volleys accomplished these objectives. As the Americans tried to regroup, the ambushers instilled greater fear into those still alive with the continued Indian war whoops and screams. The intense fighting lasted twenty-five minutes, and the entire engagement two hours. Through the dim moonlight the Americans saw Witten and his disguised black soldiers rounding the wagons and bearing down on them with tomahawks, knives, axes, and bayonets. Williams and Fort mustered enough strength to rally their soldiers, who, having run out of ammunition, mounted their bayonets and engaged the attackers in hand-to-hand combat. Witten chose to break off the attack after a stubborn American defense, but his men continued to harass the beleaguered Americans for the next two hours before the black leader burned one of the wagons and used the second to evacuate his seven wounded Indians and two militiamen. While sunrise brought a relief force from Davis Creek who rescued the white soldiers, the previous night had determined the fate of the Patriot War and effectively³⁸ ended the siege of St. Augustine.

38. John Williams to Miller, September 6, 1812, in Edwin N. McClellan, “Indian Fights, 1807–1813, Material and Sources of Chapter XIX, Volume I, History of the United States Marine Corps,” (1925), 10; John Williams to Wharton, September 15, 1812, National Intelligencer, October 20, 1812; Cusick, The Other War of 1812, 232–35.

39. John Williams to Wharton, September 15 and October 20, 1812, National Intelligencer; Cusick, The Other War of 1812, 232–35; Alexander, “The Ambush of Captain John Williams,” 293–94; Porter, “Negroes and the East Florida Annexation Plot,” 20–21; Kenneth W. Porter, The Black Seminoles: The History of a Freedom-Seeking People (reprint; Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), 8–9.