Combat· American Revolutionary War
West Florida captures Lake Pontchartrain settlement
On 10 September 1779, an American vessel under Captain William Pickles captured the British armed sloop West Florida on Lake Pontchartrain after a short fight, taking the warship that had controlled those waters.
Pickles then put the prize to use: in September he landed seamen and Marines under Marine Lieutenant Daniel Longstreet on the lake's north shore, between Bayou Lacombe and the Tchefuncte River, to raid and take possession of the British Loyalist settlements there. The action was part of the wider Spanish-American campaign under Bernardo de Gálvez that drove Britain from the lower Mississippi and the Gulf coast through the fall of 1779.
Podcast episodes on American Revolutionary War
Record no. 163