Mobile, Battle of

Battle of Mobile (26 February-14 March 1780), part of the conflict between the British and the Spanish over West Florida. Bernardo de Gálvez led his Spanish troops from New Orleans to Mobile, where soldiers from Cuba joined them. Temporarily stopped at the entrance to Mobile Bay by sand bars, the Spaniards established their first encampment on Dog River. They soon moved to Spanish River and built an artillery battery west of Fort Charlotte. A heavy bombardment of the fort began on 12 March. Two days later, Capt. Elias Durnford surrendered. Reinforcements en route to Mobile received word of the surrender and returned to Pensacola. The fall of Mobile set the stage for the battle of Pensacola. Spanish victories over the British on the Gulf coast benefited the American colonies during the War for Independence against Great Britain.

See alsoFlorida, Spanish West .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bernardo De Gálvez, "Conquista de la Movila y puestos del Río Misisipi," Havana, 28 November 1780, Archivo General de Simancas, Guerra Moderna, legajo 6912, Simancas, Spain.

John Walton Caughey, Bernardo de Gálvez in Louisiana, 1776–1783 (1934; repr. 1972), pp. 171-186.

William S. Coker and Hazel P. Coker, The Siege of Mobile, 1780, in Maps (1982).

Joseph Barton Starr, Tories, Dons, and Rebels: The American Revolution in British West Florida (1976), pp. 161-174.

Additional Bibliography

Chavez, Thomas E. Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.

LaFarelle, Lorenzo G. Bernardo de Gálvez: Hero of the American Revolution. Austin: Eakin Press, 1992.

Medina Rojas, Francisco de Borja. José de Ezpeleta, gobernador de La Mobila, 1780–1781. Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla, C.S.I.C.: Excma. Diputación Foral de Navarra, 1980.

                                           William S. Coker