The War in Florida

[suwannee]

Hope I'm not duplicating but since it's so little known I'll give a brief outline of the War in Florida.

Most Florida troops were out of state before the real fighting began - the state quickly seceded within days of South Carolina and was in the "Montgomery" Confederacy.
There was an early failed attempt to seize the fort at Pensacola - it and Key West were in Federal hands throughout the war. Jacksonville fell to a naval assault early on.
Most of the warfare in Florida was the result of Federal moves from Jacksonville into the interior.
The name "Cracker" refers to Florida's early Wild West days as cattle country. CSA drovers would take herds up the middle of the state to the railhead at Gainesville for trains headed north, "crackin' whips".
Union cavalry regiments from Jacksonville would penetrate the interior to cut off these herds, resulting in battles like those at Gainesville and Bunnell.
A little known captain named Dickinson leading irregular cavalry defeated Union forces in those and other battles. He gave the New York, Vermont and New Hampshire cavalry regiments there a hot time apparently. He would also ambush Union shipping on the St.Johns River, which Federal forces had control of.

The Suwannee River was a different matter though. The Confederates still had gunboats there and would have regular shootouts with Union boats trying to control the river. The Olustee offensive was aimed to cut Florida off from Jacksonville to Cedar Key at the mouth of the Suwannee.

Attempts on the capital at Tallahassee led to the grotesque massacre at Perry and the Battle of Natural Bridge, both Union defeats. Tallahassee was the last Confederate capital east of the Mississippi to capitulate, and was never under Federal occupation before that.

Florida cattle kept heading north to Virginia until Sherman's March knocked Georgia out of the war, and kept many from starvation. A number of Confederate government officials like Judah Benjamin escaped through the Florida interior after Appomattox, it being the only territory not in Union hands. Jeff Davis was on his way there when captured.

Florida regiments served in most of the major Tennessee and Virginia battles, and were there at the fall of Atlanta and Richmond. Many fell at Gettysburg.

The Little State that Could, Florida. The Little Known Brother of the Confederacy.

[matthew mckeon]

Florida saw the use of black troops quite early on. The First South Carolina Volunteers, the earliest, or nearly the earliest black regiment was partially recruited from Fernandina, and the recruits from that region were considered the most dedicated to the army.
The First SCV occupied Jacksonville for a time in 1863, its commander, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, wrote about the experience in "Army Life in a Black Regiment."

At Olustree, other black troops, including the 54th Massachusetts, were part of an invading force that was repulsed by Confederate forces. I believe(but could be wrong) that Olustree was the last major fight in Florida.

[samgrant]

Seems like the Union high command figured black troops were best suited to fight in Florida....

[matthew mckeon]

Dear samgrant,

The federal Department of the South, which included those areas of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, which had been seized by the federals in 1862. A backwater, it was short on troops, and commanded by officers with abolitionist leanings. Once the first black regiments were organized and performed well, it was the logical place to try some of other early units like the 54th. Whether they were operating under some sort of "black people don't mind the heat" or "don't catch the local diseases" mindset, I don't know, but the military considerations were important.

Willie Lee Rose did a very good book called "Rehearsal for Reconstruction" about the Yankee school teachers and assorted do gooders who went to the Sea Islands to try make a functioning biracial society there. They met with ah, varying degrees of success, but the story is a fascinating one(at least to me).

Charlotte Fortin, a free black woman from Philadelphia kept an extensive diary of her stay there as a school teacher.

Susie King Taylor, a teenage runaway from Savannah, and wife to a sergeant in the First SCV, published an account about thirty years after the war, that is also worth looking into.

[matthew mckeon]

The Department consisted on coastal regions, not significant territory in those states.

[suwannee]

Matt,
I suspect the Florida campaign was greatly influenced by memory of the Seminole Wars.
With small numbers they ruined the reputation of every general - Gaines, Dade, Broward, Jackson - who went into the interior.
It was reminiscent of the pre-Grant CW days, where a succession of generals swore they were going to succeed where their predecessor had failed, but they all came back with their tails dragging in defeat.
I wouldn't have risked the welfare of Union units that had hard-won reputations for victory - especially for a state the Confederates had decided not to defend.
I think "stay out of the interior" was the unwritten rule for theater commanders, and that the units employed were "expendables". The Union Army lost some of its finest cavalry there, in a place that many felt was unimportant.