Part III – 18 January 2023:
One Dreadful February
Morn
8 February 1837
Camp Monroe had been
established along the south shore of Lake Monroe in late December 1836, but
troops had yet to be ordered to leave their post to explore inland. The
soldiers reportedly stayed near Lake Monroe. Well to the south, where a town of
Orlando would one day be established decades later, was still considered deep
in Indian territory. The Army considered the region around Lake Monroe to be “deep
in the part of the country in which the great body of the Seminole Nation is
concentrated.”
Despite constructing a
fortress on the shore of Lake Monroe in December 1836, those stationed at the
fort stayed put. And instead of going in search of the enemy, the enemy came
looking for them. The Charleston Mercury of 22 February 1837 published a
report written by Colonel Fannin, who had been stationed at Camp Monroe, on the
events of 8 February 1837.
“A battle occurred on the
morning of the 8th of February at the Encampment Monroe, at the head
of Lake Monroe. This post was attacked at 5 o’clock in the morning, and a brisk
firing kept up by both parties until 8 o’clock, when the Indians retreated.”
Colonel Fannin, in command of about 250 regulars at that day, wrote “Captain
Mellon, U S Army, was killed. Lieutenant J. T. McLaughlin and 14 privates were
wounded. The hostiles were estimated at 3 or 400 strong.”
This February: Fort Gatlin Month
Countdown to Pioneer Days
The “Encampment Monroe”
name was changed immediately to Fort Mellon, a fact that can be establish in
the very same dispatch from Colonel Fannin: “The above intelligence is
confirmed by the arrival at this place on Tuesday night last, of the Steamer Cincinnati,
Capt. Curry. The attack on Fort Mellon, Encampment Monroe, was made, it is
supposed, by Philip and his gang.”
Pensacola
Gazette, 2 September 1837
“THE GRAVE OF MELLON” was
the Pensacola Gazette headline of 2 September 1837: “On the south shore
of Lake Monroe, in Florida, on the very ground where the battle of the 8th
of February was fought against the Seminoles, may be seen a little rectangular
colonnade of palmetto pickets, enclosing the hallowed spot where are deposited
the mortal remains of Capt. Mellon. Over his grave is placed a broad tablet, of
that rare and peculiar stone which is only found in certain localities in
Florida, and on it is chiseled the name and rank of the departed, with a notice
of the manner and occasion of his death:
“Though remote from the
haunts of civilized man, that grave still bears the token of human skill and
affection. Though the ground is not consecrated by religious ordinance, as the
prescribed sanctuary of the dead, it is consecrated in heroic story as the
field of martial triumph. Could a gallant soldier desire a better resting
place?”
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“Mellon received a rifle
shot in his breast very early in the action, and before the shout was heard
which proclaimed victory along our lines, he had breathed his last. Although
attacked by six hundred ferocious savages, bent on an indiscriminate massacre,
and persevering for three full hours in the hope of accomplishing their
purpose, our troops, but little more than half their number, and all recruits,
nobly breasted the showers of rifle balls poured upon them, and so dealt with
their assailants in turn, as would have done honor to veterans. In all the war,
the Seminoles have never been more severely punished than at Lake Monroe. The
only martyr on our post was Mellon, and the handsome stockade fort, now
established there, is called by his name.”
First Road to Orlando (2016) by Richard Lee Cronin
The Dade Pyramids, National Cemetery, St. Augustine
After War’s end, the
bodies of all fallen soldiers were removed from their temporary burial places established
during the war and reinterred beneath three Dade Pyramids at the National
Cemetery in St. Augustine.
Next Wednesday: Doyle & Brantley of Mellonville, Florida
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