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By Dana Peck

Florida is a watery place, bordered by seas on three sides and crisscrossed with rivers, lakes, springs and swamps.

So it makes sense that the U.S. government, in its efforts in the 1800s to drive the Seminoles out of the fertile peninsula, would turn to the sea-faring branch of the military for help.

But, during the First Seminole War (1817­1818) and the Second Seminole War (1835­1842), the fledgling U.S. Navy was unaccustomed to combat with enemies who were essentially landlubbers.

Nevertheless, as the Seminole warriors moved up and down the Florida territory, wounding and killing troops on the ground, historians say government leaders called on the Navy to help out.

For the first time in its young history, the United States engaged in combat in a watery environment.
For a start, ships from the United States' West India Squadron-the flagship Constellation, two sloops and a schooner-sailed along the coasts, helping soldiers whenever possible.

The standing orders were for the ships to pick up friendly Seminoles for "protective custody" and run down, capture or otherwise destroy hostile Seminoles, according to "Swamp Sailors in the Second Seminole War," by George E. Buker.

The need grew, however, for small shallow-draft vessels to move up and down the coastlines carrying communications for troops and then to head into battle in the swamps that flowed inland.

Out of that need the Mosquito Fleet, an amphibian command, emerged: seven ships and 622 officers and crew. The assignment was to fight the Seminole warriors in the Everglades, and capture the Seminole women and children for transport.

But not all meetings of sailors and Seminoles were combative.

Buker tells of an abandoned quarter-gunner making his way alone from Tallahassee to St. Marks, without weapons, hungry and in the rain. His solitude was cut short by an encounter with a Seminole armed with a rifle and knife. Instead of attacking the sailor, the Seminole made a shelter from the rain for him and shared a meal of wild turkey. Both slept through the night.

In the morning, the Seminole went his way, and the quarter-gunner went his, winding up in St. Marks, where he climbed aboard the Washington, just before it left the harbor.

As the fighting of the Second Seminole War continued deep into the Everglades, the Navy followed. For both the Army and the Navy, the orders were to drive away or capture the hundreds of surviving Seminoles, the small remainder of thousands who once had inhabited the territory.

By 1842, the United States said it had no desire to lose more lives and spend more money. So the Army went home and left about 300 courageous Seminoles to claim that they were indeed the unbeaten ones.

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