Military Preparations

Military concerns dominated state affairs from the earliest days of Florida’s secession. Even before the formal declaration of secession Florida moved to prepare its defenses. During an extended session from November 26, 1860, to February 14, 1861, the legislature passed a bill to reorganize the state militia, agreed to raise two infantry regiments and one cavalry regiment, and appropriated $100,000 for the purchase of arms and ammunition. On January 4, 1861, the first day of the secession convention, radical members of the convention met in private to authorize Governor Perry to seize federal military sites within the state. Governor Perry ordered state troops to seize the federal arsenal at Chattahoochee and Fort Marion at St. Augustine. Florida troops easily occupied the two undefended installations but failed to secure the more strategic federal positions at Key West, Dry Tortugas, and Pensacola, where Union troops remained in possession of Forts Taylor, Jefferson, and Pickens respectively.

Fort Pickens became the focus of particular concern between North and South as secessionist troops from Alabama and Mississippi rushed to Pensacola to reinforce the small force of Florida militia opposing the Union garrison at the fort. Similar to the situation at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, the military confrontation at Fort Pickens threatened to unleash civil war. The fact that the first shots of the war did not come from Florida was due to the South’s lack of a national government to coordinate strategy among the seceding states (the Confederate government did not exist until February 1861) and the hope that negotiations might secure Fort Pickens for Florida without bloodshed. When war finally came at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the standoff at Fort Pickens continued, but receded in importance as the focus of the war shifted to the front in Virginia. Despite a Confederate assault on Santa Rosa Island—the site of Fort Pickens—on October 9, 1861, the fort remained in Union hands throughout the war.

As Southern militias gathered in Pensacola during the first weeks of the siege of Fort Pickens, Florida, as one of the early seceding states, sent delegates to the constitutional convention that assembled on February 4, 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, to establish the Confederate States of America. The convention produced a provisional constitution and government headed by Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia as vice president. On March 11 the convention made the constitution permanent and the provisional government, which relocated to Richmond after Virginia seceded, dissolved within a year. Davis and Stephens, who were reelected to their offices in November 1861, were inaugurated as the chief executives of the permanent Confederate government on February 22, 1862.

Florida participated in all of these political developments. On February 26, 1861, the secession convention in Tallahassee approved the passage of the provisional Confederate constitution and ratified the final version on April 13. The convention also endorsed the ticket of Davis and Stephens as the Confederacy’s chief executive officers and revised Florida's constitution to recognize Florida's membership in the Confederate States.

General Robert E. Lee Commands Confederate Forces in Florida

Notice of Robert E. Lee's Assignment to Command of Confederate Forces on the Coast of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, 1861:

In South Florida, the Key of the Gulf, a Key West newspaper, was staunchly secessionist; however, its advocacy ended in May 1861 when the Federals, who remained in control of Key West, established martial law on the island. The Federal authorities shut down the Key of the Gulf and replaced it with the pro-Union New Era, which remained the principal newspaper in South Florida for the rest of the war. Other Florida Unionist newspapers arose as a result of Federal military successes in the state. Federal occupation of Fernandina and Jacksonville allowed Unionists to eventually establish newspapers in both towns. The Peninsula began publishing in Fernandina on April 18, 1863. In 1864, the Florida Union established itself as a successful weekly and continued to publish after the war as a daily.

Conscription and Impressment 

Conscription became law in Florida when the Confederate government passed the first of three conscription acts on April 16, 1862. 

While many poor Floridians doubtless welcomed state and local assistance, national government policies often met popular resistance. The two Confederate policies which caused the most unrest were conscription and impressment. Conscription became law in Florida when the Confederate government passed the first of three conscription acts on April 16, 1862. The first act called for the enrollment of all white males between the ages of 18 and 35 in the military service of the Confederate States for a period of three years. While most Southerners seemed to accept the military necessity of conscription, just as many resented the inequalities of the first act, which allowed substitution (wealthier men could pay poorer men to serve for them) and allowed planters to exempt overseers on plantations that held twenty or more slaves. By the time the Confederate government organized conscription in Florida (during the summer of 1862), most white males of conscription age in the state were already serving in the Confederate forces. Given the few men who remained eligible for the draft, Governor Milton believed it would be better if the Confederate government exempted Florida from conscription. Although he expressed this view to President Davis, Milton made it clear to the Confederate president and to the Southern public that he would make every effort to comply with the draft laws. During 1863-1865, Confederate conscript officials scoured the state for eligible men but only managed to obtain a few hundred draftees: the rest of the men (most) were either already in military service or avoiding the draft by hiding out in Florida’s vast, under populated countryside.

The Confederate impressment policy was just as unpopular with Southerners as conscription. In March 1863, the Confederate government passed an impressment law intended to ensure the adequate supply of its military forces. The law authorized impressment agents to locate foodstuffs and other supplies and established fixed prices for the necessary items. Farmers across Florida and throughout the South protested the impressment system, which deprived them of their produce and livestock for payments in increasingly depreciated Confederate scrip. 

Wealthier planters also decried impressment when it entailed the loss of valuable slaves to Confederate service. Although the impressment act required agents to pay owners at least thirty dollars a month for each slave employed in work for the Confederate government and called for the reimbursement of owners should a slave be injured or lose his life while working in Confederate service, slave owners were reluctant to give up their slaves for war work: the slaves would no longer be producing for the plantation, and owners might lose expensive slaves to injury or death during their employment on Confederate military projects. The Confederate government, however, was not reluctant to forcibly impress slaves if owners refused to provide slaves for war work.

The War at Home

The deserter issue was one of many internal problems that confronted Confederate Florida during the war. Faced daily with the possibility of receiving news of the death or wounding of a family member or friend, Floridians on the home front also had to cope with constant shortages of food and domestic goods, higher taxes, the possibility of abandoning or losing their homes due to military action, Confederate impressments of agricultural goods, and Federal confiscation of property, including slaves. Before the war, Floridians, like most Americans, had little interaction with government beyond the local level: taxation was minimal, government services few, and military service limited to irregular musters of the state militia. 

Civil war brought dramatic change to Americans’ relationship with their state and national governments. In Florida and the other Confederate states, destitution brought on by shortages and the loss of fathers and sons to the battlefront left countless small farm families (the vast majority of the white population) with little means of feeding and clothing themselves. Florida’s state government reacted to the crisis by implementing unprecedented policies to assist the ever increasing number of needy families. The state enacted legislation to allow county governments to raise property taxes to pay for the relief of indigent families of soldiers in their respective jurisdictions. Relief money was used to provide food and clothing for women and children as well as clothing and provisions for the men of poor families who had been called up for military service. 

Governor Milton and the legislature also encouraged planters to turn more of their plantation fields to the growth of edible crops rather than cotton, in order to increase food production. One unforeseen consequence of the subsequent rise in corn crops was an increase in alcohol distillation, which some farmers turned to in order to reap profits from the increased wartime demand for whiskey. In 1862, the state, concerned that so much corn was being drunk rather than eaten, banned alcohol production in Florida. Only licensed producers, who found a lucrative market for their product through sales to the Confederate government, could continue to supply alcohol for medicinal purposes and the relief of the South’s overburdened soldiers and sailors.

Florida and the War in 1864

By 1864, however, there was little difference in the military situation in Florida from what it had been in the spring of 1862. The Union continued to control Key West, Pensacola, St. Augustine, and Cedar Keys—Federal troops occupied Cedar Keys as early as January 1862. Confederate strategy in Florida remained concentrated on blocking Union access to the interior, protecting the coastal salt works, and ensuring the supply of Florida beef cattle to the Confederate army. It was Florida’s importance as a food source for the Confederacy and its burgeoning significance in Northern presidential politics that led to the Union’s decision to launch what would prove to be its largest military expedition in the state during the war.

On February 7, 1864, Federal troops once again captured Jacksonville. This time, however, the Federals were determined to hold the city and push into the interior. The objectives of the Union campaign were to gain control of agricultural resources (especially cotton, timber, lumber, and turpentine) in East Florida, recruit slaves for service as troops, interrupt the supply of Florida beef cattle to Confederate armies out-of state, disrupt the Florida railroad system, and facilitate the restoration of Florida to the Union. The last objective was the result of Florida’s potential as a source of electoral votes in the upcoming presidential election of 1864. If Florida could be restored to the Union before the Republican nominating convention, either President Lincoln, who would be running for reelection, or Secretary of the Treasury William P. Chase, who hoped to secure the Republican nomination himself, could benefit from Florida’s votes.

The Union’s East Florida Expedition

Major General Quincy A. Gillmore, the commander of the Union army’s Department of the South, which was the headquarters responsible for Federal operations in Florida, gave the command of the East Florida campaign to Brigadier General Truman B. Seymour, who led the Federal expedition that landed at Jacksonville on February 7. Seymour’s command consisted of some 6,000 troops organized into four brigades (three infantry, one cavalry) and supporting artillery units. After occupying Jacksonville, Federal cavalry conducted raids towards Lake City and Gainesville. The raiders reached the outskirts of Lake City on February 11 but retreated after encountering Confederate forces blocking their advance to the west.

Cautious after the Federal repulse at Lake City, General Seymour consolidated his position around Jacksonville, which included control of the important railway junction at Baldwin, a community about twenty miles west of the port. Now confident that Jacksonville was securely under Federal control, Seymour decided to move the bulk of his small army, about 5,500 men, from Baldwin towards Lake City. He hoped to push past Lake City to destroy the railroad bridge of the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad at Columbus on the Suwannee River. Seymour’s force began its march for Lake City on the morning of February 20.

The Union landing in Jacksonville and subsequent advance against Lake City created panic in Tallahassee. Governor Milton telegraphed the Confederate war department that “all will be lost” in Florida unless Richmond immediately dispatched reinforcements to the beleaguered state. At the time of the Union landing in Jacksonville, there were only some 1,200 Confederate troops in the Department of East Florida, the Confederate command responsible for the defense of Florida east of the Suwannee River. Brigadier General Joseph Finegan, the Confederate commander in East Florida, ordered his scattered forces to concentrate at Lake City, where he planned to block the Union advance. If he had been forced to rely solely on the few troops available to him in Florida, however, Finegan would not have been able to withstand the Union advance.

Luckily for Finegan, General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, who had overall responsibility for the command of the Confederate Atlantic Coast south of North Carolina, recognized the threat the Union expeditionary force posed to the continued supply of food from Florida to his and other Confederate armies and potentially to Florida’s future in the Confederate States. Both Beauregard and Governor Milton feared the Union advance from Jacksonville might be only one wing of a Union offensive against Florida. They saw the potential for disaster should the Union follow up the Jacksonville landing with a landing on the Gulf at St. Marks and an attack on Tallahassee. Beauregard therefore rushed reinforcements from South Carolina and Georgia to East Florida.

The Battle of Olustee

The Battle of Olustee (or Ocean Pond) was the largest and bloodiest battle fought in Florida during the Civil War.

When Seymour’s brigades began their march on the morning of February 20, Finegan had over 5,000 troops assembled at Olustee, a station of the Florida, Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad located ten miles east of Lake City. Most of the Confederate force consisted of two brigades of Georgia troops under the command of Brigadier General Alfred H. Colquitt and Colonel George P. Harrison. Finegan positioned his force in a mile and a half long line running from Ocean Pond (a large, bowl-shaped lake) in the north to a large swamp south of the railroad. When his cavalry reported the Union advance on the morning of the 20th, Finegan ordered a portion of Harrison’s brigade and eventually all of Colquitt’s brigade plus supporting artillery to advance towards the oncoming Federals, engage them, and draw them towards the prepared defensive positions at Olustee.

Colquitt and Harrison’s men were fully engaged with Seymour’s troops by the afternoon. The Georgians were unable to fall back to the Confederate defensive works at Olustee. Instead, the battle occurred in an open pine barren flanked by swamps about two miles east of the main Confederate defensive works. During the first stage of the battle, confused orders exposed two Union regiments to intense Confederate musket and artillery fire that resulted in heavy Federal casualties and the rout of Colonel J. R. Hawley’s brigade, the first infantry brigade in the Union line of advance. The breakup of Hawley’s brigade allowed a Confederate advance all along the line. Union resistance stiffened, however, and hard fighting continued into the late afternoon. By this time, the rest of Finegan’s army arrived on the battlefield and managed to push back the Union flanks.

Faced with renewed Confederate pressure, General Seymour decided to withdraw his exhausted force. He deployed his reserve brigade, which consisted of the famous 54th Massachusetts regiment as well as the 35th U.S. Colored Infantry. The two black units managed to delay the Confederate advance long enough for Seymour to execute his withdrawal. As night fell, the Union army was in full retreat towards Jacksonville. A poorly executed Confederate pursuit failed to hinder the Federal retreat. All of Seymour’s army reached the Federal lines around Jacksonville by February 22.

The Battle of Olustee (or Ocean Pond) was the largest and bloodiest battle fought in Florida during the Civil War. Given the small numbers of troops involved, overall casualties for the battle were high: the Confederates lost 946 men (93 killed, 847 wounded, and 6 missing); the Federals lost 1,861 men (203 killed, 1,152 wounded, and 506 missing). Based on the percentage of loss (29.9 percent) for the force involved, the Union casualty rate at Olustee was one of the highest for any battle of the war. The large number of Union missing included dozens of wounded or captured black soldiers, whom the Confederates, angry at seeing former slaves fighting as Union soldiers, killed out of hand. Although the Federal expedition succeeded in recruiting a number of slaves for the Union army and disrupting the movement of Confederate foodstuffs out of Florida, the defeat at Olustee ended any Union plans to bring Florida back into the United States in 1864. For the South, the battle temporarily boosted morale in what was otherwise a bleak winter for Confederate military fortunes. Florida remained in the war but returned to its pre-Olustee status as a low priority area for the Confederacy.

Further Fighting in Florida

Olustee may have been the largest Civil War battle fought in Florida, but it was not the last. In September 1864, Brigadier General Alexander Asboth, the commander of Union forces in West Florida, led a raid from Pensacola to Marianna in Jackson County. Aware of the Federal raiders, the local Confederate command hastily assembled a “Cradle and Grave Company” of militia composed of boys under 16 and men over 50 to defend Marianna. The resulting engagement was brief but intense: Confederate losses included 10 killed and over fifty captured, while the Union force suffered 8 dead and 19 wounded, including General Asboth, who was shot in the face.

The last significant battle of the war in Florida came in March 1865, when a Union force landed on the Gulf and threatened Tallahassee. After landing near St. Marks on March 4, 1865, Brigadier General John Newton and some 600 Union troops marched to the town of Newport with the intention of crossing the St. Marks River and attacking the port of St. Marks and its Confederate-held fort from the rear. Confederate forces in the area destroyed the bridge at Newport which prevented a Union crossing of the St. Marks at that point. The next day, General Newton and his force marched to Natural Bridge, where they hoped to cross the river and proceed to St. Marks. On the morning of March 6, Newton tried to move across the St. Marks at Natural Bridge, but a Confederate force positioned on the opposite bank blocked his crossing. The Confederates, commanded by Brigadier General William Miller, consisted of a motley collection of regulars, militia, and a company of cadets from the West Florida Seminary—one of two state military academies in Florida (the East Florida Seminary was in Gainesville)—in Tallahassee, which was about twelve miles north of Natural Bridge. Miller’s Confederates prevented several Union attempts to flank their position. Unable to dislodge the Confederates, Newton withdrew from Natural Bridge and retreated to the coast, where the Federal flotilla evacuated his force.

The Last Days of Confederate Florida

Although Confederate Florida proclaimed Natural Bridge a great victory, celebration in Tallahassee was short-lived. Three weeks after the battle, on April 1, 1865, Governor John Milton died of a single shotgun wound while at his plantation home in Jackson County. Although Milton's cause of death was never officially investigated, the governor was physically and mentally exhausted after leading his state during three and a half years of war. The prospect of Confederate defeat and Union occupation of Florida had also been a grievous burden for him. Following Richmond's capitulation, General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant on April 9, 1865. The end of the Confederate War, the name many had assigned to the conflict, was followed by Reconstruction and Union occupation. For Florida, the conclusion arrived on May 10, 1865, when Union Brigadier General Edward M. McCook arrived in Tallahassee to accept Confederate Major General Samuel Jones’ surrender of all Confederate forces in Florida. In a formal ceremony held in Tallahassee on May 20, McCook ordered the United States flag to be raised over the Capitol. Florida’s civil war was over.

Return to top