Battle of Mobile

On January 7, 1781, British forces made an unsuccessful bid to retake a Spanish stronghold at "The Village," an engagement that has come to be known as the Second Battle of Mobile as well as the Battle at The Village. Waldecker Colonel Johann von Hanxleden commanded the assault, and he lost his life in the effort, which unfolded amid the wider American Revolutionary War.

Background

Once Spain entered the conflict against Great Britain in 1779, Louisiana's governor Bernardo de Gálvez wasted no time launching campaigns aimed at seizing West Florida from British hands, a territory spanning portions of what we now know as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. His forces secured dominance over the entire lower stretch of the Mississippi River that September, first by taking Fort Bute and then, after the fighting at Baton Rouge, by receiving the capitulation of the remaining British troops stationed in the area. Building on this momentum, Gálvez then took Mobile on March 14, 1780, after laying siege to it only briefly. (By the following spring, he would push further still, seizing Pensacola, the seat of West Florida's colonial government.)

Following their triumph at Mobile, Spanish forces constructed a fortified position along the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. Its purpose was to protect a settlement known as "The Village," which sat at the point where the ferry crossing linking Mobile and Pensacola along the main road reached the bay's eastern side. By the time British soldiers reached the area on January 7, roughly 200 troops from the Principe Regiment held the post, commanded by Ramón de Castro y Gutiérrez.

Prelude

Pensacola, the seat of government for West Florida, housed the closest British garrison to Mobile. General John Campbell led this force, which numbered roughly 500 troops drawn largely from the 16th and 60th Regiments, along with a contingent of Waldecker grenadiers and provincial militia. At this time British ties with the Creeks, Chickasaw, and Choctaw remained fairly strong, and hundreds of Choctaw fighters answered British calls for assistance, making their way to Mobile.

A hurricane had wrecked a Gálvez-led campaign against Pensacola in the autumn of 1780, and this failure gave Campbell fresh confidence to pursue retaking Mobile. Acting on that conviction, he sent out a force exceeding 700 men on January 3, placing Waldecker Colonel Johann von Hanxleden in command of the expedition.

Battle

Late in the day on January 6, Hanxleden's men reached the vicinity of the outpost and struck at first light on the following morning. A group of forty Spaniards attempted to flee toward a nearby anchored boat, but British muskets brought down many of them in a single volley. Warriors accompanying the expedition waded into the water behind the fleeing Spaniards to claim scalps from the fallen.

Command of the assault against the fortified Spanish lines fell to Johann von Hanxleden and Philip Barton Key, who pressed forward through several successive charges. It was only on the fourth attempt that any real gain was achieved, as Key's soldiers managed to force their way into the trench and hold ground there. Hanxleden did not survive this stage of the fighting, falling when the Spanish defenders leveled bayonets and reorganized into a defensive posture. That loss drained the momentum from his assault, and Key's regiment, left without the second column needed to secure what had been gained, chose to pull back. What followed was a disciplined withdrawal, carried out as the Spanish launched a counter-attack.

Aftermath

After falling back to Pensacola, British forces abandoned any further designs on Mobile. General Campbell, commanding along the Gulf Coast, suffered a significant blow with the loss of Colonel Hanxleden, an officer he held in high regard.

Word of the assault reached Spanish officials in Cuba, who responded by sending reinforcements to bolster Mobile's defenses. Before the year was out, Gálvez had gone on to seize Pensacola as well, bringing his campaign to conquer West Florida to completion.

The lessons Ramón de Castro y Gutiérrez drew from this engagement would later prove valuable when, as governor of Puerto Rico, he organized San Juan's defenses against a British assault in 1797.