Capture of Fort Bute

Capture of Fort Bute
Part of the Western Theater of the American Revolutionary War
Detail from a 1776 map showing West Florida
Date 7 September 1779 Location Fort Bute, West Florida (present-day East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana) Result Spanish victory
Belligerents
Spain	Great Britain Waldeck-Pyrmont
Commanders and leaders
Col. Bernardo de Gálvez	Capt. Georg von Haake
Strength
1,430 regulars, militia, & natives[1]	23 Waldecker grenadiers[2]
Casualties and losses
none	1 killed 16 captured[2]

The Capture of Fort Bute signalled the opening of Spanish intervention in the American Revolutionary War on the side of France and the United States. Mustering an ad hoc army of Spanish regulars, Acadian militia, and native levies under Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent, Bernardo de Gálvez, the Governor of Spanish Louisiana stormed and captured the small British frontier post on Bayou Manchac on September 7, 1779.