The History of Florida (54 page)

forces scrambled to stop them south of the capital. Frightened Tal ahassee

citizens began digging defensive trenches (stil visible today) in case they

failed. On March 6, the Unionists stal ed at Natural Bridge and then fell

back to the Gulf coast. The battle at Natural Bridge ironical y turned out to

be one of the last Confederate victories of the war. Union losses were almost

140 men, and certainly no Yankee soldier wanted to add his name to such a

casualty list when the war seemed almost won. Confederates claimed only

twenty-five casualties.27

There would be no more triumphs for the South in the spring of 1865. Lee

surrendered to Grant in Virginia on April 9, and only a very few rebel sup-

porters in Florida thought the war could go on after that. Governor Milton’s

death by his own hand deprived the state of executive leadership at a crucial

moment in its history. Floridians still in the Confederate forces began mak-

ing their way home after taking an oath of allegiance to the United States.

Federal troops final y rode into Tal ahassee on May 20 and raised the Stars

and Stripes over the capital city once more. Florida’s Civil War was over.

Confederate veterans returned and pondered how they would make a

proof

living in a state with a barely functioning economy. Ardent ex-rebels now

had to learn how to live in peace with equal y strident Unionists and re-

build a Florida community. And what of Florida’s slave population, now free

but very uncertain of its future without political or economic rights? These

questions hung over Florida as the postwar era began.

Physical y, Florida emerged from the war in far better shape than many

of its neighbors. Some towns like Jacksonville suffered major damage, while

others like Apalachicola were destined to never regain their prewar pros-

perity. The peninsula’s abundant natural resources and pleasing climate still

beckoned, and before long the state would commence economic recon-

struction. In the end, Floridians old and new prepared to enter a radical y

new time.

Notes

1. Dorothy Dodd, “The Secession Movement in Florida, 1850–1861.”
Florida
Historical

Quarterly
12 (1933–34):45–66.

2. Emory M. Thomas,
The
Confederate
Nation:
1861–1865
(New York: Harper, 1970),

pp. 76–77; James M.McPherson,
Ordeal
by
Fire:
The
Civil
War
and
Reconstruction
(New York: Knopf, 1982), p. 129.

The Civil War, 1861–1865 · 257

3. J. H. Gilman. “With Slemmer in Pensacola Harbor.” In
Battles
and
Leaders
of
the
Civil
War
, edited by Robert U. Johnson and Clarence C. Buell (New York: Century, 1885–87),

1:26–32.

4. Zack C. Waters and James C. Edmonds,
A
Smal
but
Spartan
Band:
The
Florida
Brigade
in
Lee’s
Army
of
Northern
Virginia
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010), pp. 1–3.

5. Milton to Jefferson Davis, 18 October, 19 November 1861, John Milton Papers, Col-

lection of the Florida Historical Society, Cocoa; Robert E. Lee to John Milton, 24 Febru-

ary 1862, Lee to James M. Trapier, 19 February 1862, in
The
Wartime
Papers
of
R.
E.
Lee
, edited by Clifford Dowdey and Louis H. Manarian (New York: Bramble House, 1961), pp.

116–17, 130.

6. U.S. War Department,
Official
Records
of
the
Union
and
Confederate
Navies
in
the
War
of
the
Rebel ion
(Washington, D.C.: 1901): ser. 1, vol. 17, pp. 240, 381.

7.
Atlanta Southern
Confederate
, 27 May 1862.

8. William B. Braswell to Daniel C. Barrow, 3, 11 December 1863, 15 January 1864, box

3, folders 27, 29, Daniel C. Barrow Papers, Special Col ections Division, University of

Georgia Librarie.

9.
Macon Daily
Telegraph
, 6 December 1862.

10.
Southern
Cultivator
22 (February 1864):39; Macon
Daily
Telegraph
, 23 May 1863.

11. Major Wil iam B. Teasdale Account Book, in J. R. Adams Papers, Florida Col ection,

Florida State Archives, Tal ahassee.

12. George H. Dacy,
Four
Centuries
of
Florida
Ranching
(Saint Louis: Britt Printing, 1940), p. 52.

13. U.S. War Department,
War
of
the
Rebel ion:
A
Compilation
of
the
Official
Records
proof

of
the
Union
and
Confederate
Armies,
128 vols. (Washington, D.C.: 1880–1901), ser. 4, vol.

2, pp. 18–19 (hereafter
ORA)
; White to A. G. Summer, 13 August 1863, box 2, Pleasant W.

White Papers, Collection of the Florida Historical Society, Cocoa.

14. James McKay to White, 25 March 1864, White to L. B. Northrop, 25 February 1864,

box 1, 2, White Papers.

15. Octavia Stephens to Winston Stephens, 10, 12 March 1862, in
Rose
Cottage
Chron-

icles:
Civil
War
Letters
of
the
Bryant-Stephens
Families
of
North
Florida
, edited by Arch F.

Blakey, Ann S. Lainhart, and Winston Bryant Stephens Jr. (Gainesville: University Press

of Florida, 1998), pp. 106–9.

16.
ORA
, ser. 1, vol. 53, p. 260; “List of Commissary Department Employees,” February

1864, box 1, White Papers.

17. Milton to John Griffin, 25 March 1862, Milton to George W. Randolph, 16 October

1862, Milton Papers.

18. Henry A. Crane to James D. Green, 2 April 1864, Crane to H. W. Bowers, 15 April

1864, U.S. War Department Letters Received, Department and District of Key West, 1861–

1865, record group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

19. Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations

from the State of Florida, Rol s, 81, 27,
ORA
, ser. 1, vol. 49, part II, pp. 428–29.

20. “Memoirs,” p. 56, Calvin L. Robinson Papers, Florida Collection, Florida State Ar-

chives, Tal ahassee; George E. Buker,
Blockaders,
Refugees,
and
Contrabands:
Civil
War
on
Florida’s
Gulf
Coast,
1861–1865
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993), pp. 116–31.

258 · Robert A. Taylor

21.
ORA
, ser. 1, vol. 35, part I, p. 376, “Reminiscences,” Albert W. Peck Papers, Florida

Collection, Florida State Archives, Tal ahassee, pp. 43–44; Alfred S. Roe,
Twenty-Fourth

Regiment,
Massachusetts
Volunteers
1861–186
(Worcester, Mass.: Twenty-Fourth Veteran

Association, 1907), p. 237.

22.
ORA
, ser. 1, vol. 35, part I, pp., 276, 279.

23.
ORA
, ser. 1, vol. 35, part I, p. 293.

24.
ORA
, ser. 1, vol. 35, part I, pp. 302, 337, 298.

25.
Macon Daily
Telegraph,
25 February 1864.

26.
New
York
Tribune
, 29 February 1864.

27.
ORA
, ser. 1, vol. 49, part I, p. 63.

Bibliography

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in
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War
and
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Buker, George E.
Blockaders,
Refugees,
and
Contrabands
. Tuscaloosa: University of Ala-

bama Press, 1993.

Coles, David J. “‘A Fight, A Licking, and a Footrace’: The 1864 Florida Campaign and the

Battle of Olustee.” Master’s thesis, Florida State University, 1985.

Curenton, Mark.
Tories
and
Deserters:
The
First
Florida
Federal
Cavalry
. Laurel Hill: privately published, 1988.proof

Davis, Wil iam Watson.
The
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Florida
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Dickison, John J. “Military History of Florida.” In
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Clement A. Evans, 12 vols., vol. 11, pt. 2, pp. 1–198. Atlanta: Confederate Publishing

Company, 1898.

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Dickison
and
His
Men:
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1890
. Edited by Samuel Proctor. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962.

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Florida, 1980.

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Rebel
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The
Life
and
Era
of
Augustin
Verot
. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1964.

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Florida
during
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War
. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1963.

Reprint, Macclenny: Richard J. Ferry, 1989.

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The Civil War, 1861–1865 · 259

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proof

15

Reconstruction and Renewal,

1865–1877

Jerrell H. Shofner

The fighting was over in the spring of 1865, but there was much to be done.

Everything was at a standstil . There was no government. After Governor

John Milton kil ed himself, Union General Edward McCook had suppressed

efforts to reorganize a civil government. There was no inkling of how or

when Florida would resume relations with the United States. Abraham Lin-

proof

coln’s assassination had removed the only person who had plans to bring

the seceded states back into the Union. Newly inaugurated President An-

drew Johnson was stil formulating his ideas. There was no economy. Money

and credit had disappeared with the fall of the Confederacy. The means of

production had ended with the abolition of slavery. There were no markets

and little transportation. It was planting time, and while the new president

pondered the situation, something had to be done if crops were to be put in

so that people could eat the following winter.

In the existing political vacuum, military officials took the initiative.

General John Newton instructed Florida planters to assemble their former

slaves, explain that they were now free, and ask them to remain on the plan-

tations and work for wages. Compensation was to be paid in shares of the

harvest. When the Freedmen’s Bureau agents reached the field, the freed-

men were already at work. The agents subsequently supervised the contracts

between freedmen and their former owners, but they did so in accordance

with the system implemented by the U.S. Army as an emergency measure.

The Florida Legislature legitimized the system with appropriate legislation.