Baton Rouge, Battle of

Battle of Baton Rouge, a conflict between British and Spanish troops on 21 September 1779. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which had formerly been French, became part of British West Florida in the 1763 Treaty of Paris. Spain decided to take the frontier post when it declared war on Britain during the American Revolution. After taking Fort Bute, General Bernardo de Gálvez led a force of over 1,000 men from New Orleans in an attack on the British fort commanded by Lieutenant Alexander Dickson. Gálvez laid siege to the main redoubt with ten heavy cannons during the night of 20 September and began a devastating bombardment the following morning. With the fort damaged beyond repair, the British surrendered that afternoon with little loss of life on either side. Dickson also surrendered British claims to Natchez, thereby giving Spain the entire Mississippi River Valley.

See alsoSpanish Empire .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

John W. Caughey, Bernardo de Gálvez in Louisiana, 1776–1783 (1934).

Jack D. L. Holmes, The 1779 "Marcha de Gálvez": Louisiana's Giant Step Forward in the American Revolution (1974).

J. Barton Starr, The American Revolution in West Florida (1976).

Additional Bibliography

Beerman, Eric. España y la independencia de Estados Unidos. Madrid: Editorial MAPFRE, 1992.

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.

                             Light Townsend Cummins