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What does a doctor from Brunswick and a high school student from Augusta have in common?
A love of military history and more specifically, the military history of the southern colonies, which includes Georgia.
More than one hundred re-enactors from all over the Southeast gathered to commemorate and reenact the Battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simon's Island 250 years after the actual battle. That battle was the first time the Georgia militia - later to become the Georgia National Guard - mobilized to meet a foreign threat.
During July, 1992, lawyers, investment bankers, construction workers and history professors donned the uniforms of those early militia and British regulars who drove Spanish invaders from Georgia shores in 1742.
Units that fought at Bloody Marsh in 1742 included General James Oglethorpe's Georgia Mounted Rangers (who became the Georgia Hussars and today is Service Battery, 2nd Battalion, 214 Field Artillery Regiment in Savannah) and the British 42nd Regiment of Foot that Oglethorpe brought with him from London in 1733.
Oglethorpe knew the need for and the value of trained Militia, and when he settled Georgia in 1733, forming a militia was a priority. The General also knew that to effectively defend the colonies against the native Indians and Spanish he must have woods-wise and unconventional fighters. Hence the formation of units such as Nobel Jones' Company of Marine Boatmen, the Georgia Coastal Rangers, and the Highland Mounted Rangers.
Modern re-enactors (they prefer the title of historical interpreters) have adopted these units to study and portray as realistically as possible. Bob Blanchard, a re-enactor from Hastings, Florida, wore the green hunting crock of a Highland Ranger from western Georgia (which would have been Mississippi by today's geography). "These fellows were rugged individualists, and never did anything in formation or by the book", Blanchard said.
In July 1742, Spanish forces sailed from St.Augustine, landing at St. Simon's. The Spanish fleet of 36 ships brought two thousand troops under command of the Spanish governor of St. Augustine, Manuel de Montiano. General Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, assembled his regulars, the 650-man British 42nd Regiment, and mobilized his militia troops. The Scot Highlanders came to the Island from nearby Darien. The colonial rangers, along with their Creek, Yamacraw and Chickasaw indian allies brought Oglethorpe's strength to eight hundred.
On the morning of July 7, 1742, Georgia Rangers guarding the approach to the town of Frederica on St. Simon's sighted a force of more than one hundred Spaniards. Oglethorpe quickly organized a force composed of the Highland Independent Company, Rangers and his indian allies and personally led the assault on the Spanish at Gully Hole Creek. The fighting was fierce and lasted an hour as the Georgia militia routed the invaders. The Spanish lost one-third of their force. Indeed the entire Spanish officer corps were either killed or captured. Oglethorpe lost one man to heat exhaustion.
Later that day, additional Spanish troops landed and a force of two hundred elite Grenadiers prepared to cross an open marsh, which would become known as "Bloody Marsh". The Highlanders, Rangers, Indians, and a platoon of British regulars were waiting in ambush and opened fire on the column. There was great confusion, smoke, and screams amidst the surprised Spanish column. The Spanish could not see their adversary and failed to realize that they actually far outnumbered the Georgians.
After two hours of firing at the ghostly targets in the thick woods, the Spanish ran out of ammunition. Though their losses were light, the Spanish will to fight was gone following this second defeat by the Georgia militia. The Spanish withdrawal from St. Simon's began immediately after Bloody Marsh and Spain would never again attempt to take the English colony of Georgia, named after King George II.
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[Anon.] The Clamorous Malcontents; Criticisms and Defenses of the Colony of Georgia, 1741-1743. Introduction by Revor R. Reese. Savannah: Beehive Press, 1973.
Coleman, Kenneth, ed. A History of Georgia. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991.
Down Home Designs (firm).
Ivers, Larry E. British Drums on the Southern Frontier. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974.
Lane, Mills, ed.
Oertel, Theodore E. Jack Sutherland; A Tale of Bloody Marsh. New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1926.
Vaeth, J. Gordon. The Man Who Founded Georgia. New York: Crowell-Collier Press, 1968.
| Gordon R. Elwell is the Command Historian for the Georgia Army National Guard. He attended the Bloody Marsh Battle reenactment. |
