The Battle of Alligator Bridge took place on June 30, 1778, and was the only major engagement in an unsuccessful campaign to conquer British East Florida during the American Revolutionary War. A detachment of Georgia militiamen under the command of General James Screven chased Thomas Brown's Loyalist company into a large position of British regulars established by British Major Mark Prevost and were turned back.
The frontier between the rebel state of Georgia and the Loyal British province of East Florida was for the first three years of the American Revolutionary War the scene of ongoing raiding. Political and military leaders in Georgia believed that East Florida's capital, St. Augustine, was vulnerable, and repeatedly promoted expeditions to capture it. The first, in 1776, fell apart when Continental Army General Charles Lee was called north shortly after it got underway. The second, in 1777, had command, supply, and logistical issues; only a company of cavalry actually entered East Florida, only to be ambushed in the Battle of Thomas Creek. Following that failure, the Georgians abandoned all their military posts south of the Satilla River.
The southernmost post in Georgia was Fort Howe (previously known as Fort Barrington), on the banks of the Altamaha River, and the northernmost Florida outpost was at Fort Tonyn, in present-day Nassau County, Florida. East Florida Governor Patrick Tonyn had under his command a regiment of rangers led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Brown, and several hundred British Army troops under the command of Major General Augustine Prevost. Tonyn and Prevost squabbled over control of Brown's regiment and disagreed on how the province should be defended against the recurring forays from Georgia. Prevost was under orders to stay on the defensive, while Tonyn sought a more vigorous defense. To that end Tonyn deployed Brown's force along the St. Marys River, which (then as now) formed the border. Brown and his men, sometimes with support from Creeks and Seminoles, engaged in regular raids into southern Georgia, harassing the defenders and raiding plantations for cattle to supply some of the province's food needs.
In February 1778 Georgia's assembly authorized Governor John Houstoun to organize a third expedition against East Florida. He was opposed in this idea by the Continental Army's Southern Department commander, General Robert Howe, who (like his counterpart Prevost) sought a more defensive posture. Plans began to take shape in March, taking on some urgency after Brown's rangers captured and burned Fort Howe in a surprise attack. After this event, the Loyalists ranged freely throughout Georgia's backcountry and began recruiting in the upcountry of Georgia and the Carolinas. These actions led Georgia's leadership to conclude that a British invasion of the state was being planned, and military preparations began to accelerate.
The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) grew from colonial resistance to British taxation without parliamentary representation — a dispute that radicalized through the Stamp Act (1765), the Townshend Acts (1767), and the Boston Massacre (1770). Fighting began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775; the Continental Congress declared independence on July 4, 1776. The Continental Army under George Washington faced severe shortages of supplies and troops, enduring the brutal winter at Valley Forge (1777–1778) before French alliance and French financing turned the military balance. Major engagements included Bunker Hill (1775), Trenton (1776), Saratoga (1777) — which secured French intervention — and Yorktown (1781), where British General Cornwallis surrendered to Washington. An estimated 25,000 American soldiers died in service, from combat, disease, and captivity. The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence and ceded British territory east of the Mississippi, though it left unresolved questions about Indigenous land rights and the status of Loyalists.
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