After the second Battle of the Loxahatchee on January 24, 1838, during the Second Seminole War, Maj. Gen. Thomas S. Jesup directed Maj. William Lauderdale, commander of the Tennessee Battalion of Volunteers, to cut a trail south from Ft. Jupiter to Ft. Dallas, present day Miami, in pursuit of Seminoles who had escaped the battle. On March 2, 1838, Lauderdale marched south with approximately 200 Tennessee Volunteers and the U.S. 3rd Artillery Regiment, following the Seminoles. To avoid swamps and lagoons, they kept to the higher coastal pine ridge extending from Ft. Jupiter to the New River, where Lauderdale built a fort in present day Ft. Lauderdale, and then continued to Ft. Dallas. Because his command blazed a 63-mile trail through overgrown terrain in only four days, the route was designated Lauderdale’s Trail. It was used for military operations through the end of the Third Seminole War in 1858 and later became known as Military Trail, a remnant of the long and dramatic history of the Seminole Wars in Florida.