Thomas Creek

On May 17, 1777, near where Thomas Creek empties into the landscape of northern East Florida, a small mounted detachment of Georgia Militia rode into a trap laid by a combined force of British troops, Loyalist militia, and Indians allied with the British. History remembers the clash under two names, the Battle of Thomas Creek and, more grimly, the Thomas Creek Massacre. It stood as the single significant clash within the second of three unsuccessful bids by American forces to push into East Florida during the war's opening years.

The plan for this incursion called for a flotilla of Continental Army troops moving by sea while a company of militia cavalry advanced separately over land, the two meant to join forces at an agreed point. The ships, however, ran behind schedule, and by the time they might have arrived, British intelligence had already discovered the operation and tracked down the cavalry's position. Seizing the opportunity, the British set an ambush that shattered the cavalry unit, scattering its riders and capturing more than thirty men. Afterward, the Muscogee were said to have killed a number of these prisoners without mercy, exacting revenge for one of their own who had died in a previous skirmish.

Faced with narrow waterways and defenses the British had already prepared, Colonel Samuel Elbert, who led the invasion, chose to call off the campaign entirely. A second attempt against East Florida, mounted in 1778, collapsed as well, undone this time by disputes among its commanders, though it did produce a skirmish at Alligator Bridge.

Background

When Loyalist Thomas Brown launched a raid against Georgia in February 1777, the state's president, Button Gwinnett, responded by planning an offensive against St. Augustine, the capital of British East Florida. General Robert Howe, who led the Continental Army's Southern Department, pledged Continental troops to the effort and gave his blessing for Colonel Samuel Elbert's 2nd Georgia Regiment along with Brigadier General Lachlan McIntosh to take part. Yet McIntosh and Gwinnett harbored deep political animosity toward one another, leaving them unable to settle questions of who would lead and how the campaign would proceed. Because of this impasse, command ultimately fell to Colonel Elbert, a decision made jointly by Howe and Georgia's legislature. This same feud between McIntosh and Gwinnett later escalated into a duel on May 16, during which both combatants sustained wounds; Gwinnett would succumb to his injuries days afterward.

Beyond the 300 Continental soldiers drawn from the 1st and 2nd Georgia Regiments, the force also incorporated mounted militia under Colonel John Baker. Accounts differ regarding the precise strength of Baker's unit, with estimates placing it at roughly 100 or as many as 200 men.

The campaign got underway on May 1 when troops departed Sunbury. While Baker's horsemen traveled by land, Elbert's Continental soldiers made their way through the inland waterway by ship, with plans for both groups to converge at Sawpit Bluff, located near where the Nassau River empties into the sea in present day Duval County, Florida. Baker's forces arrived at the rendezvous point on May 12. Meanwhile, the naval squadron, led by Commodore Oliver Bowen, encountered unfavorable winds that set back its progress, so it did not arrive at Amelia Island until May 18.

Prelude

East Florida's governor, Patrick Tonyn, learned of Georgia's designs that April, and he noted that Baker's company had made its crossing of the St. Marys River on the tenth of May. Since the raid in February, a combined force of Loyalist rangers and mostly Muscogee warriors under Lieutenant Colonel Brown had kept up activity along the frontier separating the two provinces, and this group eventually located Baker's encampment. Brown hoped to seize one of the Georgians for interrogation, but Baker's men kept a close watch, and the detachment sent to grab a prisoner met gunfire instead.

During the night spanning May 14 and 15, Brown dispatched fifteen Indians with orders to make off with Baker's horses. The raiders succeeded in driving away a portion of the herd, though accounts vary as to whether the number stolen was closer to forty or a hundred, and Baker's men soon pursued them. A clash followed in which the animals were recaptured, but the fighting cost the life of at least one Indian, a Chiaha man, whose remains the British later claimed had been mutilated by the Americans. In his account of the affair, dated June 18, Governor Tonyn observed that the incident had left the Indians "greatly exasperated," a state of anger that would soon bring disaster upon the Americans.

Anxious over how long Elbert's troops were taking to arrive, and having heard from a nearby inhabitant that word of the expedition had already reached the authorities, Baker shifted his position westward in search of more defensible ground, eventually settling his men along Thomas Creek, a branch of the Nassau River. At the same time, Brown's rangers and Indian allies gained the support of British regular troops under Major Mark Prevost, swelling their combined numbers to roughly two hundred. It was during the night of May 16 into the 17th that their scouts finally discovered where the Americans had made camp.

Battle

Ahead of the path Baker intended to take, Brown positioned his Indians and rangers to spring a trap, while behind Baker's men Prevost moved his regulars forward in three columns. Around nine in the morning, as Baker's column reached the trap, Brown's fighters unleashed a sudden volley from just 50 yards (46 m) away, striking from both the front and the side. Baker and his men wheeled around to escape, only to run straight into Prevost's advancing regulars. Already rattled, the Georgians could not withstand the swarm of rangers and Indians emerging from the brush and were soon overrun. Roughly half the men bolted the moment they spotted the enemy, and Baker himself, after one of his companions took his horse, managed to flee into the swamps.

Accounts of the losses differ depending on the source. David Russell states that three Georgians died, nine were wounded, and 31 were taken prisoner, adding that vengeful Muscogee later killed many of those captives. Charles Jones offers nearly identical figures but puts the number of prisoners at 34, a total that William Nester also cites. Edward Cashin, however, claims 40 men were captured, of whom only 16 lived through the Muscogee killings. According to the National Park Service's version of events, eight men were killed during the fighting, nine were wounded, and 31 were captured, 15 of whom were later killed. Governor Tonyn and Lieutenant Colonel Brown, for their part, recorded no losses on their own side.

Aftermath

Two days after the fighting ended, Elbert and his troops arrived in East Florida, coming ashore at the northern tip of Amelia Island. He had no way of knowing that Governor Tonyn had already dispatched a modest fleet to intercept him near the St. Marys River. Fortunately for Elbert, strong winds pushed these vessels out into open water, where one became entangled in combat with a privateer, allowing his own force to reach the island without major trouble. On May 19, thirteen survivors from Baker's command found him and gave an account of what had happened. Two days afterward, three more men who had broken free from captivity showed up, bringing word that Indian guards had murdered five other prisoners in cold blood. Faced with this grim news, worried about Tonyn's naval threat, and hampered by boats too large for the narrow passage separating Amelia Island from the mainland, Elbert called off the planned invasion and set sail toward Savannah on May 26.

Augustine Prevost, who held military command at St. Augustine and happened to be Mark Prevost's older sibling, attributed the day's success entirely to his regular troops. He faulted Brown's rangers and their Indian allies for letting the remaining rebels escape without pursuit, and he declined to cover the costs of the expedition. As he put it, the Indians had walked away with plunder, the rangers with cattle, and the soldiers with nothing but trouble for their efforts.

Brown's raiders soon returned to harassing Georgia, stirring fresh demands within Patriot ranks for a military response. His raids proved effective enough that Governor Tonyn pressed General William Howe to launch a campaign aimed at restoring British authority over Georgia. By 1778, American General Robert Howe, working alongside John Houstoun, then serving as Georgia's president, drew up plans for a fresh assault on East Florida. Like its predecessor, this campaign suffered from leadership disputes, and whatever soldiers did reach Florida were repelled at the Battle of Alligator Bridge. That December, British forces dispatched from New York seized Savannah, soon reinforced by troops arriving from St. Augustine, which restored royal control throughout Georgia.

Today the battlefield lies within Jacksonville's Thomas Creek Preserve, forming part of the larger Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve. The land remains untouched by development, though travelers along nearby U.S. Route 1 can find a historical marker noting the battle that took place there.