SW061 GARI Surveys Wahoo Swamp to Spot the Battle Lines to confirm or refute written accounts

 

Sean Norman, acting director of GARI, Gulf Archaeological Research Institute, joins us to discuss the research findings of GARI's report on the 1836 Battle of the Wahoo Swamp. He describes how they engaged the community impacted, surveyed the available terrain, discovered various artifacts, and what GARI concluded in its report.




Official register entry for Battle of the Wahoo Swamp from Nov. 26, 1836.

Wahoo Swamp is the battle with the funny name. It provided a bookend to US military efforts to remove Seminole from Florida in 1836. Spring battles within the Withlacooche River region taxed the efforts of a number of Federal Army generals. With these regulars unable to bring the Seminole heal, Florida territorial governor Richard Keith Call, as territorial militia chief, took troops into the Wahoo Swamp to try his hand at removing the Seminole, in this case, using volunteers and Florida militia with available regular troops. His efforts were as futile as the regulars' attempts before him. The battle became known for the death of one of its officers, David Moniac, who had led Creek volunteers and had been the first Native American (Indian) to attend and graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. This is because the battle itself was inconclusive for the U.S. military. For the Seminoles, thwarting American military advance meant they would live another day free in Florida.  

Host Patrick Swan is a board member with the Seminole Wars Foundation. He is a combat veteran and of the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Kosovo, and at the Pentagon after 9/11. A military historian, he holds masters degrees in Public History, Communication, and Homeland Security, and is a graduate of the US Army War College with an advanced degree in strategic studies. This podcast is recorded at the homestead of the Seminole Wars Foundation in Bushnell, Florida. 

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