Battle of Lake Pontchartrain

Background

For the first several years of fighting, the Gulf Coast saw little of the conflict's violence, and it was not until 1779, when Spain joined the war, that this changed. Prior to that point, New Orleans functioned as the capital of Spanish Louisiana and, at the same time, as a discreet channel through which funds and supplies reached the Patriot side. Spanish governors had extended their quiet backing to this cause even before their nation formally entered the conflict, with much of the arrangement handled through Oliver Pollock, a well known merchant in the city. Pollock functioned essentially as a representative of the Continental Congress, conducting negotiations with the Spanish governor and undertaking various efforts, which included drawing on his own personal wealth, to advance Patriot interests along the lower Mississippi.

James Willing organized a raid in 1778 aimed at British holdings in West Florida. Among the vessels he seized during this campaign was a British ship called Rebecca, taken on the Mississippi and brought back to New Orleans. This captured vessel was subsequently absorbed into the Continental Navy and given a new name, USS Morris, honoring the Philadelphia financier Robert Morris.

British West Florida stretched geographically from the Mississippi River on its western edge to the Apalachicola River in the east. Since 1776, HMS West Florida had patrolled Lake Pontchartrain under George Burdon's command, halting and inspecting vessels of every description, a practice that extended even to Spanish traders headed for New Orleans and caused considerable irritation among Spanish authorities. Despite his efforts, Burdon failed to intercept Willing during the 1778 raid, and he eventually brought his ship back to Pensacola, the seat of West Florida's government, for repairs late that year. By January 1779, command had passed to Lieutenant John Payne, who took over from Burdon and brought considerable familiarity with the region, having previously conducted survey work along the West Florida shoreline. The vessel itself was a sloop-of-war which, according to those who eventually captured her, carried a handful of four and six pound cannon along with roughly thirty crew members, though British sources put the number of crew at only fifteen.

Prelude

Until August 1779, Payne patrolled the coastal waters of West Florida without incident. That changed on August 27, when he dispatched a small boat carrying a handful of men to establish contact with troops under Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Dickson stationed at Manchac. The vessel disappeared and never came back.

Unbeknownst to Payne, this was the very day Bernardo de Gálvez, governor of Spanish Louisiana, set his campaign in motion to seize British strongholds along the Mississippi. It was Gálvez's forces who seized the missing boat. His campaign proved effective: the garrison at Manchac fell on September 7, and following the fighting at Baton Rouge on September 21, Dickson and the remaining British troops along the river agreed to surrender. Payne had no knowledge that any of this was happening.

Meanwhile, Pollock exercised the commissioning power Congress had granted him, placing Continental Navy Captain William Pickles in charge of Morris. A hurricane wrecked that vessel, the same storm that also pushed back the launch of Gálvez's campaign, so Gálvez furnished Pickles with a replacement, known alternately as Morris or as "Morris's tender." Lieutenant Peter George Rousseau, serving as Pickles' second-in-command, later described the ship as a schooner carrying five small cannon, none exceeding two and a half pounds, along with ten swivel guns. He also noted the absence of barricades that might have shielded the crew from gunfire on deck. Beyond this, the men aboard were poorly equipped for combat at close quarters, having no axes, lances, or similar tools needed for boarding an enemy vessel. Pollock's orders to Pickles were to disrupt British military vessels operating on the lake, where activity had lately picked up considerably.

Battle

Setting out from New Orleans, Pickles commanded a mixed company of fifty seven Americans and Spaniards, with Rousseau, a Frenchman holding a commission in the Continental Navy, serving beneath him as second officer. Wanting to conceal his true purpose, he ran up a British ensign as a ruse.

On September 10 the two vessels came within sight of one another and drew close, at which point Payne called across to Morris seeking to learn her business. The answer given was that she was merely a merchant vessel headed for Pensacola. Moments later Pickles ordered the deceptive colors struck and an American flag raised in their place. What followed was a scramble of grappling hooks as the Americans and Spaniards hauled the two ships together, unleashing swivel gun fire even as Lieutenant Rousseau readied men for boarding. Neither vessel, it seems, resorted to its heavier artillery during this exchange.

Despite being badly outnumbered, Payne's men fought back fiercely, driving off two separate boarding attempts. A third assault, however, broke through their defenses, and in combat later characterized as extremely fierce, Payne himself fell with wounds that would prove fatal. The attackers ultimately overpowered the British side, leaving two more men injured besides Payne, though they themselves paid dearly, losing between six and eight killed along with a number wounded.

Aftermath

After the fighting, Captain Pickles brought his captured vessel to New Orleans, and Pollock arranged for her outfitting there. He went on to patrol the waters of West Florida while Governor Gálvez pushed his forces up the Mississippi. Pickles lent his support to Gálvez again at the Battle of Fort Charlotte, an engagement that led to Mobile's capture, and afterward he sailed the ship on to Philadelphia to be sold.

A historic marker in Mandeville, Louisiana now stands as a tribute to this clash. According to the marker's inscription, William Pickles brought the Revolutionary War in Louisiana to its close, pointing to the surrender of certain British men along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain to Pickles in mid-October 1779, roughly three weeks after Baton Rouge had fallen. Here, the name "Louisiana" refers specifically to the land that would become the state, not the whole of Spanish Louisiana. Notably, the Battle of St. Louis, another conflict within that broader Spanish territory, would not occur until 1780.