How One Woman’s Search for Her Revolutionary War Ancestors Changed the Historical Record

A woman tracing her Revolutionary War-era family roots uncovered evidence that is changing how historians view Florida’s part in America’s fight for independence.

For generations, Florida was largely seen as a lesser player in the colonies’ defeat of Britain, especially when compared with battleground states such as New York, South Carolina and Massachusetts.

That long-held assumption began to unravel two years ago, when Florida native Carol Garner came across records that challenged the familiar version of the story.

Garner was digging through archives in Raleigh, North Carolina, while researching her genealogy when a reference librarian pointed her toward a man working to transcribe and digitize pension files belonging to Revolutionary War veterans.

She soon learned that both she and the man descended from John Scott, a soldier who, along with fellow veteran David Walden, had provided extensive spoken testimony about the contributions of Florida patriots when seeking postwar pensions.

Although Scott and Walden were unable to read or write, their accounts had been carefully written down by someone else. Those statements described how Florida patriots used guerrilla-style tactics that pressured British forces into moving by sea — a shift that ultimately helped set the stage for a crushing British naval defeat that effectively brought the war to a close.

‘I don’t think we should have an inferiority complex of not being as patriotic as Massachusetts or Charleston or any of those other places that had battles,’ Garner told First Coast News.

‘The patriots here were so persistent that it forced the British to go by sea up the coast,’ she added.

The reason it has taken 250 years to set the record straight on Florida’s contribution to the Revolution is that historians have long relied on letters and documents left behind by literate British officers. 

Those officers were inclined to highlight Britain’s victories in formal battles that occurred in the state while ignoring skirmishes and smaller losses.

But Scott and Walden’s accounts show that the records left behind by British officers were biased and did not tell the full story. 

During the Revolution, the northeastern Florida city of Jacksonville was called Cowford, and it was a critical crossing point over the St Johns River. 

When the British took control of Florida in 1763, they built Kings Road connecting St Augustine to the Georgia border, and they operated a ferry in Cowford that connected the two sides of the road separated by the river.

Kings Road was a critical supply line through which the British moved artillery, supplies and men, so it was a target for the patriots.

Between 1776 and 1779, patriots constantly ambushed British forces in Cowford and on Kings Road. They hid in swamps and bushes, waiting for the redcoats to come by in their bright uniforms, then attacked. 

Garner told First Coast News that one of her favorite stories from those ambushes was when Americans pounced on a regiment of redcoats, stripped them of their uniforms and sent them back to their fort naked. 

‘But they didn’t kill them. They still felt enough brotherhood with other British, because they were colonists; they all came from England. They just wanted to keep them from pestering,’ she told the outlet. 

The patriots then disguised themselves with the uniforms to raid loyalist plantations, stealing livestock and supplies.

The three official American campaigns to take St Augustine all failed, which is the story that has been told in history books for centuries, but Garner’s discovery has revealed that patriots’ smaller victories were a major strategic success.

Kings Road was a vital artery for the British meant to allow troops to travel by land all the way from St Augustine to Savannah, Georgia, but the constant harassment by patriots made the road unusable for the crown. 

The British were thus forced to move soldiers by sea, making them vulnerable to Spanish and French ships along the coast.

Ultimately, the movement of troops by sea led to Britain’s defeat. The crown had sailed to Savannah, then to Charleston and continued north before they were flanked by a French fleet positioned at Yorktown. 

General Cornwallis marched his troops into the port city and found himself surrounded by George Washington’s forces on land and the French ships at his back, forcing him to surrender.

Cornwallis’s surrender in Yorktown marked the end of the final major campaign in the Revolution and essentially guaranteed America’s official victory in the war less than two years later.

Florida’s contribution to that legendary moment in American history is now commemorated in a plaque that was recently erected in Jacksonville. 

Garner spent two years getting the marker approved, as she had to verify every claim three different ways. She submitted 25 different versions of the plaque’s text before one was finally approved. 

Although the effort was lengthy and arduous, she told First Coast News that the timing with America’s 250th anniversary made it all worth it.