The residents of East Florida were happy with the status quo, so the US raised a force of volunteers in Georgia with a promise of free land. In March 1812, this force of “Patriots”, with the aid of some United States Navy gunboats, seized Fernandina. The seizure of Fernandina was authorized by President James Madison, but he later disavowed it. The Patriots were unable to take the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine. The increasing tensions and approach of war with Great Britain led to an end of the US incursion into East Florida. In 1813 an American force did succeed in seizing Mobile, Alabama from the Spanish.
Before the Patriot army withdrew from Florida, Seminoles, as allies of the Spanish, began to attack them.
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