After several days' rest, Gálvez advances on…

After several days' rest, Gálvez advances on Baton Rouge, only fifteen miles (twenty-four kilometers) from Fort Bute.

When Gálvez arrives at Baton Rouge on September 12, he finds a well-fortified town garrisoned by over four hundred regular army troops and one hundred and fifty militia under the overall command of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Dickson.

The troops consist of British Army regulars from the 16th and 60th Regiments, as well as some artillerymen, and several companies of Germans from the 3rd Waldeck Regiment.

Gálvez first sends a detachment of men further up the river to break communications between Baton Rouge and British sites further upriver.

Unable to directly advance his own artillery before the fort, Gálvez orders a feint to the north through a wooded area, sending a detachment of his poorly trained militia to create disturbances in the forest.

The British turn and unleash massed volleys at this body, but the Spanish forces, shielded by substantial foliage, suffer only three casualties.

Gálvez digs siege trenches while this continues and establishes secure gunpits within musket range of the fort.

He places his artillery pieces there, opening fire on the fort on September 21.

The British endure three hours of shelling before Dickson offers to surrender.

Gálvez demands and is granted terms that include the capitulation of the eighty regular infantry at Fort Panmure (modern Natchez, Mississippi), a well-fortified position that would have been difficult for Gálvez to take militarily.

Dickson surrenders three hundred and seventy-five regular troops the next day; Gálvez has Dickson's militia disarmed and sent home.

Baton Rouge will remain in Spanish hands for the rest of the war, and Britain will cede both West and East Florida to Spain in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

It will not become American territory until 1810.