On February 5th and 6th, 2011, a reenactment of the “Battle of Okeechobee” was held at the Okeechobee Battlefield Historical State Park along the northern shore of Lake Okeechobee, near the town of Okeechobee. The original battle was fought on Christmas Day, 1837, between several tribes of Seminoles and forces for the US government, and was the largest battle of the Second Seminole War. Of the estimated 360 soldiers Col. Zachary Taylor sent into active engagement, 138 were killed or wounded (38%). The tribes’ estimated casualties were 21.
The Seminoles did so well because of their superior understanding, or at least use of, pristine Florida’s ecology.
The Kissimmee Prairie dominated the region between Fort Bassinger on the Kissimmee River, where Taylor’s 20-mile march to the Okeechobee battle began. The Indians had heard from “runners” that troops were coming, and in Taylor’s day-long march to Okeechobee, they could “see him coming” across the prairie. Taylor’s report said, “… we entered a large prairie in our front, on which two or three hundred head of cattle were grazing, and a number of Indian ponies…” Taylor captured a young Indian (probably placed there) who, “pointed out a dense hammock on our right, about a mile distant, in which he said the hostiles were situated and waiting to give us battle.”
Taylor noted, “Moving on in the direction of the hammock, after proceeding about a quarter of a mile, we reached the swamp which separated us from the enemy, three quarters of a mile in breadth, being totally impassable for a horse, and nearly so for foot, with a thick growth of saw-grass, five feet high and about knee-deep in mud and water, which extended to the left as far as the eye could reach, and to the right, to a part of the swamp and hammock we had just crossed, through which ran a deep creek.” The Indians were concealed in a tree line along, “the great lake Okee-Chobee, which was the rear of the enemy’s position.”
The “three-quarter mile-wide saw grass swamp stretching as far as the eye could see” laid behind a sand ridge and beach that formed Okeechobee’s northeastern shoreline, and extended from Taylor Creek down to present day Pahokee. Sand ridges are common along high-energy coastlines and behind them frequently are low areas with marshes, as was the case here.
The importance of holding the “high ground” in military engagements is well known. In this case, the Seminoles picked ground that was but a few feet high, but made a world of difference ecologically, and tactically. If Taylor charged directly at the Indians, his men would be slowed greatly by deep muck with no cover but grasses, against an opponent on high, dry ground, with trees to hide in, and behind.
These descriptions of the battlefield are rich in ecological clues about pristine Okeechobee. First, there was a bottom to the mud, that is, they hit solid ground (sand) a few feet down. And the “mud” was not sand, but organic. Organic deposits (partly rotted plant material) form only in water. If organic soils (peat, muck, etc.) are exposed to air enough of the time, they quickly decompose, just like a compost pile that collapses in time. So, the soldier’s swamp had to have been wet almost all of the time. Yet, it was only 3 feet deep, so had to have had little or moderate dry downs for the organics to persist. And we can predict the swamp did not get much deeper, or it would have drowned the sawgrass. These clues, that the water had not been much shallower or deeper at the battlefield site, agree with hydrological models of a pristine Lake Okeechobee that indicate the lake probably did not fluctuate much more than about 4 feet between drought and flood years.
Once Taylor’s forces reached the sand ridge, the Indians used one last ecological preparation to elude the soldiers—they hopped in boats at the lake’s edge and got away, successfully evacuating men, women and children. Taylor was not equipped with boats for pursuit, and halted to tend the wounded.
This battle was typical of the how the Second Seminole War went for the US. The Indians consistently used Florida’s wet topography to their advantage and US forces were severely handicapped by them. Of all of the US Indian wars, this one was the longest, costliest, and had the greatest loss of soldier’s lives.
Today, the battlefield is drained. The organic mud has decomposed away and the sawgrass is replaced with bahiagrass for cattle feeding. The retreat route, and view of Lake Okeechobee, is cut off by the Hoover Dike around the lake. The ridge the Indians fought from is covered with houses—after all, it remains high and dry.
The lake now fluctuates about 10 feet between droughts and floods, due to human drainage in the watershed and water supply use. These wide fluctuations create water supply shortages when the lake is low, and drown plant and animal communities when the lake is high, accompanied by massive dumps of water to the estuaries, creating further harm. If the lake still fluctuated only four feet like it used to, these problems would not vex us.
Comparing the soldier’s problems with natural Florida, and the problems our modern society has with Florida and its water, it reminds me that after all these years, we as a society still have a long way to go in understanding how to deal with water.
Audubon’s Paul Gray served on the Battlefield Park Advisory Group, assists with the CSO, and participated in the 2011 battle reenactment as a Missouri Volunteer (Paul is a native Missourian).
