Battle of Lake Pontchartrain
Mandeville, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana
Marker Inscription
The Battle of Lake Pontchartrain. On October 16, 1779, the British living between "Bayou La Combe and the River Tanchipaho," surrendered to Captain William Pickles who had won a naval battle off this shore on September 10, 1779, and thereby ended the Revolutionary War in Louisiana.
Erected by City of Mandeville, Mandeville Bicentennial Commission
The Story
On September 10, 1779, Captain William Pickles won a naval fight off this shore, and on October 16 the British living between Bayou Lacombe and the Tangipahoa River formally surrendered to him. The action helped bring the Revolutionary War's Gulf Coast fighting to a close in Spanish Louisiana. It was part of the wider struggle in which Spain, allied against Britain, pressed the British out of the lower Mississippi region.
Why it matters
It marks a little-known Gulf theater of the American Revolution, where the war's outcome turned on Spanish and allied action far from the eastern battlefields.
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Related people
- · William Pickles
Themes & tags
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