Capture of Mobile

American troops led by James Wilkinson took control of Mobile, Alabama, in 1813, an action carried out amid the wider fighting of the War of 1812.

Background

In November 1803, John Randolph, who chaired the House Committee on Ways and Means, brought the Mobile Act before the House of Representatives. President Thomas Jefferson put his signature to the bill on 24 February 1804, making it law. Yet Mobile stayed in Spanish hands even after the United States absorbed the Republic of West Florida in 1810. Spain's grip on the region had grown feeble, weakened by its conflict with Napoleon and by uprisings across its South American colonies. Matters had reached such a low point that Luis de Onís, serving as Spain's envoy to the United States, argued against any military effort, whether from Spain itself or from its allies Britain and allied native tribes, to protect Spanish Florida. He held that diplomacy alone offered Spain any hope of holding onto its Florida territory. Then in 1813, President James Madison directed General James Wilkinson to march out from New Orleans and seize Mobile from Spanish control.

Capture

Facing Wilkinson's forces stood Captain Cayetano Pérez of the Spanish garrison. With no hope of reinforcement from his government and hemmed in on all sides by superior numbers, Pérez had little choice but to hand over Fuerte Carlota to General James Wilkinson on 13 April 1813. Above the fort the American flag was hoisted, an event that marked its first appearance over the city of Mobile.

Aftermath

Once the Spanish forces yielded, Mobile and its neighboring lands became part of the Mississippi Territory. Fort Bowyer rose at Mobile Point on 30 August 1813. Of all the ground the United States gained during the War of 1812, this seizure and absorption of Mobile stood alone as the one territorial gain that endured permanently.