Civil War Articles by Julian WilliamsCaptain Wilson Conner Ran Up Another Flag At Fernandina
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
As the Reverend Elder Wilson Conner absentmindedly drummed his fingers against the hard oak desk in his office at the old courthouse he riveted his mind upon his unsettling opinion that they had moved the county line to get him out of Tattnall and into Montgomery. Not that it was all that bad because he was actually in the same place - the county line had moved - he hadn't gone anywhere! Much unlike the Oconee River. When that thing moved, it moved and left Dead River, no pun intended, out of the mainstream. Or some might have thought so but Dead River would have much life as long as The Reverend Elder Wilson Conner drew breath and took nourishment. He would see to it.
Now Reverend Elder Wilson Conner did not like to be out of the mainstream. They (those other politicians) moved that county line to take away his military company of which he was commander (captain). But, by stars, he would keep his company, and if he didn't, he was going to Florida with other Patriots from Georgia to "persuade" those Spanish soldiers that they really didn't enjoy that Florida beach as much as they thought they did. With this, he dusted off his military hat (not cap), straightened the leather cockado on it and admired the ball of white hear (hair) attached thereunto. His own design - and he was proud of that hat - and the other parts of the uniform, especially the fine looking waistcoat, with pleats.
As Wilson Conner surveyed the situation, he thought about John Clark, with his plantation at Jacksonville, Georgia, how he had followed his old daddy, General Elijah Clarke off down into Florida earlier - when his father had tried to form his own country down there. Then he thought again of the old general as he tried to start his own country in Georgia - up around Toomsboro - and was calling it the Trans-Oconee Republic. Now General Washington had frowned on those efforts and got word to General Elijah that one country was enough to keep going and for him to shut that one down. He shut her down.
And this is what Captain Wilson Conner could not quite understand. The government didn't let General Clarke proceed successfully in the country-starting business in Florida or Georgia and now it seemed they were encouraging "the Georgia Patriots" to go down to East Florida and start a "republic."
As Captain Conner got more information he began to see the plan. President Madison and Secretary of State Monroe were getting low profile approval from Congress for some Georgia settlers, and some already down there, to mosey on down to Fernandina under the pretext of looking for Indians or runaway slaves or whatever excuse they could lay ahold of and take possession of Fernandina and Amelia Island for purposes of protection and keeping things under control - if they could work this out with the local authorities (who happened to be from Spain). If they weren't from Spain they held their posts by that authority.
Now, strange things happen and one had already happened. Who in the world was going to lead these shenanigans but General George Mathews - the very man who had been sent earlier to stop General Clarke from doing the same crazy thing! Driven away because he had messed up with the Yazoo Land Fraud scheme he was now recalled to service to orchestrate this seamy bit of hocus-pocus. Ladies and gentlemen, "deception" was the word for the day. And the masters were about to carry out the theme in grand style.
No sooner had General John R. Coffee of Tennessee and Andrew Jackson cleared town heading across Mississippi Territory and toward the Indians and any other obstacle in sight, than the Tennesseans on the east side of the state began to head for the headwaters of the St. Marys River where they would join hands with the Georgians to take Fernandina away from the Spaniards.
And take it they did. Hardly had 1812 gotten underway good than the combined forces of Georgia and Tennessee and covertly, the U.S. army, navy, and marines snatched the Fernandina fort from the Spaniards. But it wasn't too covertly because Marine Capt. John Williams got shot eight times in one of the encounters down there. For his trouble, Andrew Jackson named a fort for him in Alabama - Fort Williams. Fame is expensive.
And when they took the Fernandina fort, Captain Wilson Conner and the other Patriots took down the Spanish Flag and ran up the Patriots Flag. Then they replaced it with the United States Flag. Right there in a few minutes is three-eighths of the reason Fernandina is called the City of Eight Flags. Captain Wilson Conner and his men had accomplished their mission. Fernandina was now in the possession of the United States of America. That seemed good.
But, in the meantime, the northern Republicans and some Federalists had been fussing over the country's ambitions to take Canada to the north and Florida to the south. Why, the War Hawks and expansionists said, "That's the only way to balance her out!" But, Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe, for more reasons than we will ever know, began to crawfish and move carefully backwards. They wanted Florida and wanted her bad but "now" did not seem like the right time. The politicians, the Indians, the runaway slaves, the English, the Spanish and even some of the French, were getting upset. Too many people were getting upset at the same time.
But, to hold onto their hopes of continuing the possession of Florida (in a nice way, of course), they replaced General Mathews with David Mitchell, who as Governor of Georgia in 1815, signed the charter for Jacksonville, Georgia. Madison and Monroe thought he could hold the pieces of the puzzle together without getting the glue on everything else and everyone else around.
But General George Mathews did not take kindly to the unfortunate turn of events. He was being made a goat again, he reasoned, and this time, by thunder, he was going after them!
Mathews had to reluctantly relinquish his gains in East Florida. So incensed was he with President Madison and his advisors that he proclaimed, "be dam'd if he did not blow them all up." Fortunately for them, he suddenly died. This took place in Augusta, Georgia, as he was making his angry way to the steps of the capitol at Washington, D.C. Fate had seen to it that Madison and company remained intact.
And speaking of "the steps of the capitol of Washington, D.C.," there is another small story attached to this whole big story and none other than The Reverend Elder Captain Wilson Conner is part and parcel thereof.
His titles and his name keep getting bigger and bigger and longer and longer and next week we will add yet another appellation to this unforgettable, colorful and dynamic character who rode his horse from around Dead River and Long Pond right on down into the waiting arms of sunny Florida.
And it all happened just before they built three forts around Jacksonville, Georgia - Ft. McIntosh on Horse Creek, Ft. Clark (at present site of Blockhouse Church) and Ft. Adams up around Temperance where some of the Willcoxes lived.
Credits:
Albert Sidney Johnson for "Longpondium";
Peg Conner Corliss for notes on Wilson Conner;
Gene Barber for The Way It Was;
Thomas A. Bailey for A Diplomatic History of the American People.
