The Battle of 1702

The Battle


Moore collected a force of some 500 militia soldiers and 300 Yamasee Indians with the willing support of the Carolina legislature, who felt the need to act once word arrived in mid-summer of the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in Europe. Since England and Spain were at war, so should their respective colonies be. The legislature appropriated the funding for the expedition and promised to any participant in the attack an equal share of whatever loot might be captured.



Fourteen ships departed Charleston on 16 October 1702. The plan was for Moore to attack Spanish outposts along the coast with a seaborne force while a land-based force under Colonel Robert Daniel marched on St. Augustine. Daniel's troops landed in the Spanish province of Guale (some 60 miles north of St. Augustine), on 3 November. They proceeded to kill, capture, or drive off all the Spanish and Indian inhabitants of villages, who retreated south. Moore's force had similar success attacking various villages along the coast. Fleeing Spaniards and Indians reached St. Augustine on the evening of the 4th with news of the attack.



Governor Zuniga immediately gathered the inhabitants of St. Augustine into the citadel and appropriated all available food. He also sent a frigate to Havana begging for aid, while other messengers were dispatched to the Spanish outposts at Pensacola and Mobile. He sent a small force northward to slow or stop the English colonists, but they had little success. English sails were sighted 9 miles north of the town by the evening of the 5th. The next day, three English ships sailed south past St. Augustine to the mouth of the Matanzas Inlet, the southern approach to St. Augustine harbor. The remaining ships sailed up to the harbor on the morning of 8 November, but owing to the shallow bar at the entrance the men debarked on the south side of the harbor and marched around to join Daniel's force.



On the 9th Zuniga brought the final citizens of the town into the fortress. The following morning his scouts reported the approach of Daniel's men. When the English colonists arrived in St. Augustine and took up positions, Moore then landed his men from the ships. Inside the fort Zuniga oversaw approximately 1,500 people, of whom some 600 were either soldiers (just over 200) or citizens he could use for the defense. His fourteen cannon were old, his ammunition in short supply, and his artillerymen without experience. From interrogated prisoners Zuniga learned that the En-glish had brought supplies for a three-month siege. As he could not match that, his only hope was relief from Havana.



The English were not fully in occupation of St. Augustine until 14 November, at which point Zuniga sent out a sally to burn down all the houses in the immediate neighborhood. They were destroyed to a distance of about 75 yards from the fort, giving the muskets a clear field of fire. The English had few cannon of their own, but began digging parallels to bring them as close as possible. The Spanish cannon fire did little direct harm but did keep the English cautious and under cover. The siege trenches were dug in anticipation of heavy artillery arriving from Jamaica; Moore dispatched Daniel there to fetch weapons and reinforcements.



The siege settled into a waiting game, with Zuniga occasionally able to get messengers carrying requests for aid through the English force. On 14 December an Indian, calling himself Juan Lorenzo, and his wife approached the Castillo San Marcos gate. When admitted inside, he claimed to be a deserter from the English force. He informed Zuniga that the English morale was rapidly deteriorating and that they would soon abandon the siege. After questioning, Lorenzo and his wife went to join the other Indians in the fort. He then tried to provoke a rebellion against the Spanish. When this was reported to Zuniga, Lorenzo was taken into custody and tortured for information, which he refused to give. His wife, however, admitted that they had been sent by the En-glish, hoping they could explode the fort's powder magazine.



By the 19th the English trenches were within 100 yards of the walls, but the English still lacked strong enough guns to create a breach. Spanish morale plummeted when two sails came into view on Christmas Eve and they were topped by the Union Jack. The English ships did not carry heavy ordnance from Jamaica; however, they did bring more men and ammunition. Zuniga ordered a Christmas party and a bonus for the defenders in order to keep up spirits. It did not succeed, but the arrival of four Spanish ships on the 26th did raise morale. The ships did nothing until the 29th, apparently unready to engage the English ships on hand. On the 29th, however, they finally unloaded 212 soldiers just down the coast. That was sufficient to bring Moore to the decision to withdraw. The return of Spanish ships from their unloading of troops blocked an escape by sea, so he ordered his own ships burned and retreated by land. Luckily for him, he had stationed reserve ships up the coast and they were used to ferry the remaining 500 men back to Carolina.