St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI. 25 May 1780. A British expedition sent out by Lieutenant Governor Patrick Sinclair from Michilimackinac was repulsed by Captain Don Fernando de Leyba, Spanish commandant of San Luis de Ylinueses (modern St. Louis, Missouri). Sinclair had hoped to gain significant control over the Indian trade on the Upper Mississippi River by pushing the Spanish and Americans out of the Illinois region. The raiders amounted to as many as 1,000 Indians and a handful of British under the leadership of Emanuel Hesse, but they were not prepared to encounter resistance. Leyba's 29 regulars and about 280 French-speaking militia refused to be intimidated, and Hesse withdrew in part because he feared being hit in the rear by Americans from Cahokia. A companion British force from Detroit had greater success in June in capturing Riddle's and Martin's Stations in Kentucky. A retaliatory Spanish counteroffensive took Fort Saint Joseph on 12 February 1781.
SEE ALSO Fort Saint Joseph, Michigan.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kinnaird, Lawrence. "The Western Fringe of Revolution." Western Historical Quarterly 7 (July 1976): 253-270.
McDermott, John F. "The Battle of St. Louis, 25 May 1780." Missouri Historical Society Bulletin 36 (April 1980): 131-151.
revised by Robert K. Wright Jr.