When withdrawing in 1815, the British deliberately left what was soon called the Negro Fort, with all its weapons and ordnance, in the hands of those disciplined, paid-off Corps of Colonial Marines black troops who chose to remain.

Surrounding it was a sizeable community of runaway slaves, Red Stick Creeks (some of whom were forced out of the Mississippi Territory and Georgia), and the occasional white trader.

The existence of a Negro Fort, as the U.S. Army called it, was anathema to Georgia plantation owners, who feared this threat to their slaves.

On the one hand, artillery of sufficient size to destroy the fort would have to be brought in by boat, so U.S. gunboats, stored in Pass Christian after their successful use in the Battle of New Orleans, were sent for.

The U.S. Army sent Captain Samuel Donoho in June, 1817, assisted in July by Brevet Major David E. Twiggs and his company from the 7th U.S. Infantry, to rebuild it.

[5]: 64  Protection along the U.S.–Florida border proved to still be necessary, even though the War of 1812 was over; raids were regularly launched into Georgia from Spanish Florida by Red Sticks, other Seminoles, and maroons (escaped slaves).

The Red Stick Chief Neamathla visited Major Twiggs soon after his arrival and warned him not to cross the Flint River.

The Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, ordered General Gaines to remove Neamathla and his followers from this land.

The Americans failed to capture Neamathla, but his tribe of Mikasuki abandoned the land the U.S. claimed did not belong to them.

A blockhouse named Fort Hughes was built in modern Bainbridge, Georgia, close to Fowltown.

The news of this attack was widely reported in the U.S. press and contributed to President James Monroe's order to General Andrew Jackson to "punish" the Red Sticks regardless of whether they were in U.S. or Florida territory.

Partly because of heavy rains, soldiers died rather than recovered, and a number are buried in the vicinity, though the graves have not been located.