Thomas Creek, Battle of
Years: 1777 - 1777
The Battle of Thomas Creek, or the Thomas Creek Massacre (May 17, 1777), is an ambush of a small force of Georgia militia cavalry by a mixed force of British Army, Loyalist militia, and Indians near the mouth of Thomas Creek in northern East Florida.
The encounter is the only major engagement in the second of three failed attempts by American forces to invade East Florida in the early years of the American Revolutionary War.
The invasion attempt consists of a naval flotilla carrying Continental Army troops and a company of militia cavalry traveling overland.
The flotilla is delayed in reaching the rendezvous point, and British intelligence have learned of the expedition and locate the cavalry.
The British establish an ambush, which breaks up and scatters the cavalry, taking more than thirty prisoners.
Indians with the British forces are reported to kill a number of the captives in cold blood afterward, in revenge for the death of one of their own in an earlier skirmish.
Colonel Samuel Elbert, the invasion commander, abandons the expedition when his flotilla is confronted by narrow channels and prepared British defenses.