Thanks for this, and also to
@DRW for his thread
Reconstruction 150: Florida Emancipation Day.
I did want to add more context to the emancipation story in Florida. May 20, 2015, was not the first time that slaves in Florida had heard of the EP.
In fact, Union authorities had been making forays into Florida throughout the War. The state was not strategically important enough for the Union to conduct many operations there. But Union troops did, for example enter Jacksonville during the war, and that
city changed handed hands several times throughout the conflict. Some of the Union forces consisted of men from the US Colored Troops. In NE Florida for sure there was an awareness of the Emancipation Proclamation, and slaves seesawed from slavery to freedom and back more than once as the Union and Confederacy took control of the Jacksonville.
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Emancipated slaves wait in front of the Provost Marshal's office in Jacksonville about 1864.
As noted
here, the 2nd Infantry Regiment, USCT, did time in Florida. The source notes:
The 2nd U.S.C.T. was attached to the District of Key West, Florida, Department of of the Gulf, in February, 1864, and saw duty in New Orleans and Ships Island, Mississippi. In May the unit also participated in an attack on Confederate fortifications at Tampa, resulting in the destruction of the Confederate positions. The 2nd participated in several operation along Florida's west coast between July 1st and 31st, 1864; including raids from Fort Myers to Bayport, and from Cedar Key to St. Andrew's Bay. During the St. Andrew's Bay expedition the 2nd skirmished with Confederate troops on the 18th of July.
There is a monument to the 2nd USCI in Fort Myers, FL, which is south of Tampa/St Pete:
My guess is that many slaves in west-central Florida - and admittedly, the huge part of the slave population resided in the northern part of the state - would have been aware of the Proclamation from Union soldiers .
Fort Pickens was a fort just outside Pensacola that remained in Union hands throughout the war. It is somewhat infamous in some circles as one of the first federal locations where slaves sought refuge from slavery, but were turned back. (This happened after the first rash of secessions, but before the attack on Fort Sumter). The book
Blockaders, Refugees, and Contrabands: Civil War on Florida'S Gulf Coast, 1861-1865 by George Buker talks of how the war affected Florida's western coast. The book notes that as the war progressed, many slaves ("contrabands") escaped, and some sought out the Navy blockaders as a path to freedom. Some slaves joined the U.S. Navy.
So, although General McCook did read the EP in Tallahassee at the time noted, many slaves throughout the state were aware of the EP, and an untold but small number gained freedom as a result of Union occupation. Of course, the surrender and more widespread Union occupation made the proclamation of freedom into the reality of freedom. But if the "grapevine telegraph" was active throughout the state, it was probably abuzz with the idea that freedom might be coming, and McCook confirmed that the rumors and their hopes were true.
- Alan