Triumph (61 page)

Federal forces fear a similar action at Ft. Pickens, Pensacola Bay, Florida. Three forts guarded the bay, McRee and Barrancas on the land side, and Pickens on the tip of forty-mile long Santa Rosa Island. Federal Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer spiked the guns at Barrancas, blew up the ammunition at McRee, and moved his meager troops to Pickens, where he was eventually reinforced by 500 men. Though Florida troops took the navy yard, retention of the fort by the Federals nullified the usefulness to the Rebs of what was considered the most important navy yard south of Norfolk.

July 18th: First Manassas, or the First Battle of Bull Run, Virginia—both sides get their first real taste of battle. Southern troops are drawn from throughout the states, including Florida. Already, the state, which had been so eager to secede, sees her sons being shipped northward to fight, and her coast being left to its own defenses by a government with different priorities.

November: Robert E. Lee inspects coastal defenses as far south as Fernandina and decides the major ports of Charleston, Savannah, and Brunswick are to be defended, adding later that the small force posted at St. Augustine was like an invitation to attack.

1862

February: Florida’s Governor Milton publicly states his despair for Florida citizens as more of the state’s troops are ordered north after Grant captures two major confederate strongholds in Tennessee.

February 28th: A fleet of 26 Federal ships sets sail to occupy Fenrandina, Jacksonville, and St. Augustine.

March 8th: St. Augustine surrenders, and though Jacksonville and other points north and south along the coast will change hands several times during the war, St. Augustine will remain in Union hands. The St. Johns River becomes a ribbon of guerilla troop movement for both sides. Many Floridians begin to despair of “East Florida,” fearing that the fickle populace has all turned Unionist.

March 8th: Under the command of Franklin Buchanan, the
C.S.S. Virginia
, formerly the scuttled Union ship
Merrimac
, sailed into Hampton Roads to battle the Union ships blockading the channel. She devastates Federal ships until the arrival of the poorly prepared and leaking Federal entry into the “ironclad” fray, the
U.S.S. Monitor
. The historic battle of the ironclads ensues. Neither ship emerged a clear victor; the long-term advantage went to the Union since the Confederacy was then unable to break the blockade when it had appeared, at first, that the Virginia might have sailed all the way to attack Washington, D.C.

April 2nd: Apalachicola is attacked by a Federal landing force. The town remains a no-man’s-land throughout the war.

April 6th-8th: Union and Confederate forces engage in the battle of Shiloh. Both claim victories; both suffer horrible loses with over twenty thousand killed, wounded, or missing.

April 25th: New Orleans falls, and the Federal grip on the South becomes more of a vise.

Spring: The Federal blockade begins to tighten and much of the state becomes unlivable. Despite its rugged terrain, the length of the peninsula, and the simple difficulty of logistics, blockade runners know that they can dare Florida waterways simply because the Union can’t possibly guard the extensive coastline of the state. Florida’s contribution becomes more and more that of a breadbasket as she strips herself and provides salt, beef, smuggled supplies, and manpower to the Confederacy.

May 9th: Pensacola is evacuated by the Rebs and occupied by Federal forces.

May 20th: Union landing party is successfully attacked by Confederates near St. Marks.

May 22nd: Union Flag Officer DuPont writes to his superiors, with quotes, that had the Union not abandoned Jacksonville, the state would have split, and East Florida would have entered the war on the Union side.

Into summer: Fierce action continues in Virginia: battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines, May 31st, the Seven Days Battles, May 25th-7th, the battle of Mechanicsville, June 26th, Gaines Mill, or Cold Harbor, June 27th. More Florida troops leave the state to replace the men killed in action in these battles, and in other engagements in Alabama, Louisiana, and along the Mississippi.Salt becomes even more necessary: Florida has numerous saltworks along the Gulf side of the state. Union ships try to find them, confiscate what they can, and destroy the works.

August 30th: Second Battle of Manassas, or Bull Run.

September 16th and 17th: The battle of Antietam, or Sharpsburg, takes place in Maryland, where the “single bloodiest day of fighting” occurs.

September 23rd: The preliminary text of the Emancipation Proclamation is published. It will take effect on January 1st, 1863. Lincoln previously drafted the document, but waited for a Union victory to publish it; both sides claimed Antietam, but the Rebels were forced to withdraw back to Virginia.

October 5th: Federals recapture Jacksonville.

December 11th-15th: The Battle of Fredericksburg.

December 31st: The Battle of Murfreesborough or Stones River, Tennessee.

1863

March 20th: A Union landing party at St. Andrew’s Bay, Florida, is attacked and most Federals are captured or killed.

March 31st: Jacksonville is evacuated by the Union forces again.

May lst-4th: The Battle of Chancellorsville. Lee soundly beats Hooker, but on the 2nd, General Stonewall Jackson is accidentally shot and mortally wounded by his own men. He dies on the 10th.

June: Southern commanders determine anew to bring the war to the Northern front. A campaign begins that will march the Army of Northern Virginia through Virginia, Maryland, and on to Pennsylvania. In the west, the campaign along the Mississippi continues with Vicksburg under siege. In Florida, there is little action other than skirmishing and harrying attacks along the coast. More Florida boys are conscripted into the regular army. The state continues to produce cattle and salt for the Confederacy.

July 1st: Confederates move towards Gettysburg along the Chambersburg Pike. Four miles west of town, they meet John Buford’s Union cavalry.

July 2nd: At Gettysburg, places like the Peach Orchard and Devil’s Den become names that live in history.

July 3rd: Pickett’s disastrous charge.

July 4th: Lee determines to retreat to Virginia.

July 4th: Vicksburg surrenders.

July continues: The Union soldiers take a very long time to chase Lee. What might have been an opportunity to end the war is lost.

July 13th: Draft riots in New York.

August 8th: Lee attempts to resign. President Jefferson Davis rejects his resignation.

August continues into fall: Renewed Union interest in Florida begins to develop as assaults against Charleston and forts in South Carolina bring recognition by the North that Florida is a hotbed for blockade runners, salt, and cattle. Union commanders in the South begin to plan a Florida campaign.

September 20th: the South is victorious in the Western field of battle when General Bragg routes General Rosecrans at Chickamauga.

November: The Union army is besieged at Chattanooga. On the 24th, Sherman crosses the river and, the next day, the Confederates are forced to flee the field.

1864

February 7th: Union General Seymour comes ashore in Jacksonville, Florida, preparing for an offensive.

February 20th: The battle of Olustee, Florida, takes place. The Southern forces win the battle when the South is weakly faring elsewhere.

April 9th: Union General Grant tells Meade that “Wherever Lee goes, there you will head also.”

April 12th: Bedford Forrest’s Confederate cavalry storm Ft. Pillow, Tennessee. Many of the soldiers at the fort are black, causing the North to claim that the battle was a massacre. Later, the Confederates involved will be accused of committing horrible atrocities.

April 30th: Joseph Emory Davis, son of Jefferson Davis, dies in a fall from the balcony of the White House of the Confederacy.

May 5th and 6th: The Battle of the Wilderness takes place. The terrible fires that break out make battle even more horrible for the men wounded and left to die in the tangled brush.

The Union does not retreat.

May 8th: Anderson, commanding Longstreet’s forces, gets between the Yanks and Richmond. The Confederates entrench, and the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse begins.

May 10th: Skirmish at Beaver Dam Station.

May 11th: At Yellow Tavern, the great cavalier Dixie, J.E.B. Stuart is mortally wounded. The South loses another of its most able commanders.

May 15th: The Battle of New Market. Desperate, Confederate General Breckinridge commits the 247 cadets of the Virginia Military Academy to the battle. There are ten dead and forty-seven wounded cadets. Through the end of May, the Northern and Southern troops clash in their race south.

June 1st: Grant begins to batter Cold Harbor. The heavy fighting lasts from June 3rd through June 12th. The cannon fire can be heard in Richmond. No matter what Grant’s losses, Lee holds. Grant heads south to try to get to Richmond through Petersburg. By the end of June, both armies are entrenched.

July 12th: President Lincoln is on a parapet at Ft. Stevens where Early’s Confederates are sending sniper fire. “Get down, you damned fool, or you’ll be killed,” he is told. The messenger is a young officer named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. The president takes no offense. Ducking down, Lincoln comments that Holmes knows how to talk to a civilian.

July 30th: The Crater. A Union decision to mine a crater beneath the Southern lines at Petersburg goes horribly awry. Hundreds of Rebels are instantly killed, but the attacking Union soldiers become trapped in the crater and are slaughtered by the defenders. Four thousand Federal troops are killed or wounded within three hours of fighting. Confederate losses are about 1500.

August 31st: Hood desperately telegraphs Lee to come to Atlanta—he must abandon the city.

September 2nd: Federal troops occupy Atlanta.

September 5th: Declared a day of celebration by President Lincoln as Atlanta has fallen and Admiral Farragut has taken Mobile Bay.

October 1st: A Confederate soldier finds the body of a woman on the beach. She is Rose Greenhow, the Confederate spy, drowned while escaping her ship from Europe after it was accosted by the Union blockade. The soldier had taken some of the gold she carried; discovering her identity, he gave it back.

November 8th: Lincoln defeats George B. McClellan to win a second presidential term.

November 11th: Union troops in Atlanta begin the systematic destruction of food supplies and arms, anything that might be left behind, for the South. Sherman’s “scorched earth” policy is given full measure.

November 16th: he begins marching through the heart of Georgia, heading for the sea.

December 22nd: Sherman sends Lincoln the message, “I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah.”

1865

January 15th: Fort Fisher, at the port of Wilmington, North Carolina, the Confederates last real point of contact with the outside world, surrenders.

February 17th: Columbia is occupied and destroyed. Ft. Sumter, held by the South from the first action, falls back to the Union. Charleston is abandoned.

March 4th: The Battle of Natural Bridge, Leon County, Florida. The “Baby Corps,” troops under General William Miller and troops that included boys from the Seminary West of the Suwannee (now known as Florida State University) repel three strong assaults by Union General Newton and save Tallahassee. It is the only Southern capital not taken by Union troops before Lee’s surrender. Also on March 4th, President Lincoln is inaugurated for his second term.

March 24th: Lee makes plans to remove his army from Petersburg, knowing all is lost if he does not. On the 25th, a plan to break through the Federal line has a handful of “deserters” appearing to remove Federal defenses while Gordon makes an assault. There are 4,000 Rebel losses—many of whom surrendered rather than face the slaughtering fury of fire set upon them.

March 28th, The Army of the Potomac prepares for its final assault. 125,000 Union troops are gathered to face fewer than 50,000 remaining Confederates. Lee hopes to join Johnston and make a last stand in North Carolina, the “Tar Heel” state.

April 1st: Florida’s Governor, John Miton, foreseeing the fall of the Confederacy, commits suicide.

April 2nd: The Confederates abandon Petersburg. A. P. Hill is killed in the fighting. The Confederate capital is lost; Richmond, too, abandoned.

April 9th: The Army of Northern Virginia fights its last battle. Knowing all is lost, Lee, the great commander, surrenders to Grant. He tells his men to go home and be “as good citizens as you were soldiers.” On April 10th, the hungry Rebels receive rations from the Union army. The Confederate government receives word of the surrender, and heads deeper into North Carolina. On the 12th, General Gordon leads the official surrender, accepted by Joshua Chamberlain of Gettysburg fame.

April 14th: Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater. He survives through the night, and dies on the 15th.

April 16th: Confederate General Johnston surrenders 31,000 Rebel troops.

June 2nd: General E. Kirby Smith surrenders his troops. The most ardent of Southern generals, he is the last to surrender such troops in the field. His mother has remained in St. Augustine throughout the war. One of his officers, General Shelby, will not surrender, but takes his troops south to fight in Mexico.

July 7th: Four of the Lincoln conspirators are hanged; four are imprisoned at Ft. Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas off the Florida Keys. Dr. Mudd, who treated Booth’s leg, is later pardoned for his work in the yellow fever epidemic of 1867.

President Johnson tries hard to follow Lincoln’s resolves for peace and forgiveness; he cannot help the bitterness that will divide the country for decades to come. Only one man will die a “war criminal,” Henry Wirz, who commanded Andersonville, notorious for being a prison where death was prevalent and sometimes preferable to life. He was hanged—slowly. It took him seven minutes to die. President Johnson will see most of the Southern cabinet paroled; Jefferson Davis will suffer imprisonment for several years after the war.