Today in History: The Battle of Nassau

On this day (March 3) in 1776, the newly formed U.S. Navy and what would become the Marine Corps took Fort Montagu in the Bahamas. Their objective was to capture stores of gunpowder known to be kept in nearby Nassau but their inexperience caused them to lose most of the sought after stores. They announced their intention to seize the stores before actually capturing Nassau and then waited until the next day to take the town instead of attacking that afternoon. They also failed to picket the harbor. This permitted the governor of Nassau to move 162 out of 200 barrels of gunpowder out of Nassau by ship before the Americans arrived on March 4 to seize the town. They held it for two weeks and apparently drunk up most of the town’s liquor supply. Then they returned to America with their captured stores. The Battle of Nassau was the first amphibious landing by the U.S. Marine Corp.