Siege of St. Augustine (1740)

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For the siege during Queen Anne's War, see Siege of St. Augustine (1702).
Siege of St. Augustine
Part of the War of Jenkins' Ear

Castillo de San Marcos
Date13 June–20 July 1740
Location
St. Augustine, Spanish Florida
Result Spanish victory
Belligerents
 Great Britain
Spain
Commanders and leaders
Gen. James Oglethorpe
Ahaya Secoffee
Cdre. Pearce		 Governor Manuel de Montiano
Strength
1,000 infantry
(Oglethorpe's Regiment, Georgia Provincials, South Carolina Provincials.)
900 sailors
1,200 warriors[1][2]
56 cannons
5 frigates
3 sloops[3]		 750 infantry
50 cannons
1 fort
6 small ships
Casualties and losses
122 killed
16 captured
14 deserted[4]
56 artillery pieces captured
1 schooner captured		 unknown

The siege of St. Augustine was a military engagement that took place during June–July 1740. It involved a British attack on the city of St. Augustine in Spanish Florida and was a part of the much larger conflict known as the War of Jenkins' Ear.

Background

In September 1739,

Fort Mose, the first free black settlement in America.[6]

Siege

Oglethorpe deployed his batteries on the island of

sortie by 300[7] Spanish and free blacks attacked Fort Mose held by 120 Highlander Rangers and 30 Indians. In the Siege of Fort Mose, the garrison was taken by surprise with 68 killed and 34 captured while the Spanish loss was 10 killed.[8]

The Spanish managed to send supply ships through the

Royal Navy blockade and any hope of starving St. Augustine into capitulation was lost. Oglethorpe now planned to storm the fortress by land while the navy ships attacked the Spanish ships and half-galleys in the harbor. Commodore Pearce, however resolved to forgo the attack during hurricane season. Oglethorpe gave up the siege and returned to Georgia; abandoning his artillery
during his withdrawal.

See also

Oglethorpe Greeting the Highlanders of Darien, the 42nd Regiment of Foot (old)

References

  1. ^ Accounts vary considerably from 900 to 2,000 with the number of Indians especially at variance from 100 to 1100.
  2. ^ Letter of Governor Montiano to the Governor of Cuba, 28 July 1740
  3. ^ Robert Beatson, Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain, from 1727 to 1783, London, 1804, p. 20
  4. ISBN 978-0-87436-837-6
    , p. 255
  5. ^ Baine, R. E. (2000). General James Oglethorpe and the Expedition Against St. Augustine. The Georgia Historical Quarterly, 84(2), 197–229. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40584271, pg. 204
  6. ^ Landers, Jane (1990). Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Spanish Colonial Florida. The American Historical Review, 95(1), 9-30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2162952, pg. 19
  7. Cartagena de Indias
    : "consisting of 30 ships of the line and of a landing party of 10,000."
  8. ^ Report of the Committee Appointed by the General Assembly of South Carolina in 1740. On the St. Augustine Expedition under General Oglethorpe. Published by the South Carolina Historical Society. (Charleston, S.C. : Walker, Evans & Cogswell Co., Printers, Nos. 3 and 5 Broad and 117 East Bay Streets, 1887.) Extract No. 32, Deposition of Thomas Jones, survivor of the Battle of Fort Mose. His account naturally varies with that of Montiano.

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