The Battle of Lake Pontchartrain:

One of the few battles to occur in Louisiana during the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Lake Pontchartrain was a naval engagement that took place near Mandeville in September 1779. It pitted the Royal Navy sloop-of-war West Florida against the Continental Navy schooner Morris. The battle was loosely associated with Spanish Louisiana governor Bernardo de Gálvez’s combined-forces campaign against British forces in the neighboring colony of West Florida, following Spain’s declaration of war against Great Britain in June 1779. At the time, Lake Pontchartrain marked part of the border between the British colony and the Spanish province of Louisiana.

The prelude to the battle tracks back to a raid conducted by Continental Navy captain James Willing in 1778, during which his forces sailed down the Mississippi River into British-held territory. Among the prizes Willing’s forces captured was the British ship Rebecca, which he brought to New Orleans at the raid’s conclusion. American partisan Oliver Pollock, a key financier of the American war effort living in the city, had the ship refitted, renamed it Morris (after Robert Morris), and put it into service under the Continental Navy flag on Lake Pontchartrain—with the blessing of Spanish Governor Gálvez. After the first Morris was destroyed in a hurricane, Gálvez, eager to disrupt British operations on the lake, supplied another vessel, which took on the same name. Capt. William Pickles assumed command of the new Morris for the Continental Navy.

Spanish Louisiana governor Bernardo de Gálvez

Public Domain