Page 55 - John Anderson

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wound up being held under siege at Camp Izard on the banks of the
Withlacoochee River for over a week before being forced to retreat.
General Winfield Scott arrived in late March with 5,000 men and a
grand plan of conquest, but spent a month conducting a fruitless,
frustrating search for Indians that had taken to the impenetrable
swamps and forests and refused to come out and fight. Governor
Richard K. Call led several thousand men into the Seminole
stronghold to the west of the Withlacoochee, only to be stopped by
strong Seminole resistance at the Battle of the Wahoo Swamp. The
Seminoles were proving much harder to subdue than anyone
expected.

In late 1836 command of the war passed to General Thomas Jesup,
who began a methodical, well-supplied campaign against the
Seminoles in central Florida. A string of forts and depots were built,
including Fort Foster on the Hillsborough River (now reconstructed as
a State Park) and Fort Dade on the Withlacoochee (now in Seminole
Wars Foundation ownership and under archaeological investigation).
Jesup’s efforts paid off when head chief Micanopy and several other
leaders came into his Fort Dade headquarters in March 1837 to sign
a capitulation. The agreement collapsed in June when the Seminoles

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