The Capitol Dome

6 HIS FINEST HOUR: PENSACOLA Aer the victory at Mobile, everyone was counting on an immediate push against Pensacola. Pensacola was the cap- ital of British West Florida and the key to the control of the strategic Old Bahamas Canal, which ran parallel to the coast and was the main route for the Spanish ships on their way from the Caribbean to Europe. At least those were Gálvez's plans and orders. But once again, he was denied the necessary reinforcements from Havana. Actually, a few days aer Mobile was taken, several vessels arrived from Cuba but the troops were insufficient for the intended attack against Pensacola. Gálvez was furious. In a letter to his uncle José, the powerful minister of Indies, he wrote "we can't consider without pain that if the expedition from Havana would have arrived in time, the English would have suffered as much as in Saratoga." 13 He had no choice but to return to New Orleans, where the population received him again as their hero and he immediately started the preparations for the final assault against Pensacola. ere was lingering concern over Gálvez's recent con- quest. Although he le his good friend and one of his best officers, José de Ezpeleta, as governor of Mobile, he was certain that the British would try to re-conquer the place. He was right. In January 1781, the much-feared Hessians— German mercenaries in the British service—attacked Mobile with fixed bayonets. Private Benjamin Baynton, an American loyalist, may have overstated the case when he called the fierce fight a "Bunker Hill in miniature." 14 Only through a combination of courage, good leadership and sheer luck did the Spanish garrison succeed in holding the fort. Increasingly impatient with the old generals in Havana, Gálvez decided to go himself to Cuba to try to speed things up. Aer a series of never-ending war councils he managed to get most of the troops and ships he needed, and in October 1780 the expedition departed for Pensacola. When a furious hurricane hit the fleet, sinking several ships and damaging or dispersing most of the rest all around the Caribbean, the old generals saw it as the triumph of reason Fig. 4. is anonymous View of Pensacola, in West Florida (London, 177?), presents an idealized and highly glorified view of the modest port to highlight instead its strategic military and economic importance in the British Empire—and hence, the importance of Gálvez's victory. THE CAPITOL DOME

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