The First Seminole War began when U.S. soldiers attacked the Lower Creek village of Fowltown near today's Bainbridge, Georgia, on November 21-23, 1817. Native American and Maroon warriors retaliated by capturing a U.S. Army vessel there on November 30 during the Scott Battle of 1817. Fighting spread to Spanish Bluff, Fort Hughes, Ocheesee, the Upper Chipola, Miccosukee, Econofina, Old Town, Pensacola, and Holms' Town. The Monroe Administration then ordered Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson to invade Spanish Florida with a large army, and his troops crossed into the colony at present-day Chattahoochee in the spring of 1818. Jackson drove most of the Seminoles and their allies to the east side of the Suwannee River, seized the Spanish posts of San Marcos de Apalache and Pensacola, and triggered a major international incident with Spain; his capture and execution of two Bahamian traders also created a diplomatic incident with Great Britain. Conflict between the United States and the Seminole and Miccosukee people continued for four decades, ending only three years before the Civil War, with thousands dead and thousands more forced west on the Trail of Tears. The Apalachicola River served as a vital U.S. supply line during the war, but Native American warriors attacked supply boats there during the Scott Battle of 1817 and downstream at the Battle of Ocheesee until a severe cold snap in late December 1817 forced them to withdraw to their villages. Neamathla, a Red Stick Creek leader regarded as a man of eloquence and influence among the Seminoles, advised his people not to accept U.S. removal west, and Governor William DuVal later deposed him by refusing to recognize him as a chief of the Seminoles. In 1818, Milly Francis, often called the Creek Pocahontas, saved the life of an American soldier after warriors captured him, and she likely had visited today's River Landing Park with her father, the Prophet Josiah Francis, in 1815.