Bernardo de Gálvez

Recorded sideSpain

Recorded resultVictory

Spanish victory. Bernardo de Galvez, governor of Louisiana, opened his Gulf Coast campaign by taking the British posts on the lower Mississippi and forcing the surrender of the fort at Baton Rouge - and with it the post at Natchez.

Galvez sited a battery to bombard the earthwork fort directly while feinting elsewhere, so the defenders could not answer the guns and had little choice but to surrender. Behind the tactics was strategy: Spain had entered the war against Britain, and Galvez moved fast to clear the Mississippi corridor before the British could reinforce it.

What followed

The opening win of Galvez's campaign that would clear the British from the lower Mississippi and Gulf Coast. It is a concrete piece of the often-forgotten Spanish contribution to the American Revolution - a second front that drained British attention and resources far from Washington's armies.

Recorded sideSpain

Recorded resultVictory

Spanish victory. Galvez landed near Mobile despite a storm that scattered and damaged his fleet, brought up siege guns, breached Fort Charlotte, and forced its surrender before a British relief column from Pensacola could arrive.

Speed and persistence. Galvez pressed on after the storm wrecked part of his expedition, got his artillery ashore and into battery, and opened a breach quickly enough that the fort fell before help came up from Pensacola. Local knowledge of the Gulf and a tolerance for risk let him keep the initiative.

What followed

The second major prize of Galvez's Gulf campaign, taking Mobile from Britain and setting up the decisive assault on Pensacola the following year. Another building block of Spain's underrated contribution to the American Revolution.

Recorded sideSpain (with French naval support)

Recorded resultvictory

Decisive Spanish (Franco-Spanish) victory; British general John Campbell surrendered West Florida after a Spanish shell detonated the magazine of the Queen's Redoubt.

Gálvez assembled overwhelming numbers with combined land and naval forces, sustained a methodical siege, and a lucky shell strike on the British powder magazine collapsed the defenders' main redoubt and forced surrender.

What followed

Completed Spain's conquest of British West Florida, eliminated British power on the Gulf Coast, and underpinned Spain's recovery of Florida at the 1783 Treaty of Paris.