MARCH
6, 1865:
The Battle of Natural
Bridge:
Florida
is the forgotten child of the Confederacy. With a tiny population in 1860
(140,000, divided 60% White-40% Black), Florida’s manpower contribution to the
Confederacy was less than 20,000. It did, however, send more of its men to
fight than any other State, North or South per capita.
Florida’s
Civil War history is obscure. There are no great Floridian Generals. No massed
armies fought in Florida. Florida missed its opportunity to be the birthplace
of the Civil War in early April 1861 when local Confederates permitted the
Union to resupply Fort Pickens in the Panhandle rather than draw a line in the
sand as the South Carolinians did at Fort Sumter a week later.
The
Union bottled up Florida’s ports fairly early in the war, and the State’s
largest city --- Key West ---flew the Stars and Stripes throughout the war
(although the city acted in effect as a neutral port serving both combatants).
Florida’s
role in the war was as a supply depot for the Rebel Cause. The State provided
the Confederacy with millions of tons of salt, beef, pork, cereals, grains,
fruits, lumber, and other supplies between 1861 and 1865.
The
battles in Florida rate only footnotes in the great histories of the Civil War.
Even the largest battle in the State, at Olustee in February 1864, hardly rates
a mention but for the fact that it ended in a Confederate victory that saw the
slaughter of negro Union troops.
For
the most part, the Union dominated Florida in the Civil War though it did not
retake it. The State became a refuge for deserters and for people fleeing the
battles further north. An unknown number of fighting men disappeared down into
the heart of the peninsula or moved southward along the coasts.
There
was a strong Unionist contingent in the State, even though Florida’s politics
were dominated by the Panhandle-based Plantation Belt. As of March 1865, only
two State capitals remained in Confederate hands --- faraway Austin in the
Trans-Mississippi, and Florida’s own Tallahassee.
On
February 26th, a large Union force made an amphibious landing at
Cedar Key, planning to seize (and burn) Tallahassee before moving north through
westernmost Georgia. Opposing them were a mere handful of toothless Confederate
regiments worn out from battle elsewhere, a few companies of well-drilled State
Militia, and a grab-bag collection of ill-armed, ill-trained, but determined
County and local irregulars.
The
invading Union force was made up largely of U.S.C.T.
The
defending Confederate force was led by Generals William Milton C.S.A. (the son
of the Governor), William Miller C.S.A., and Samuel Jones C.S.A.
The
Union troops had been harried in their progress up the St. Marks River, and
when they reached Natural Bridge, just before Tallahassee, they were met by a force
consisting of every local man who could hold a rifle, including squads of
teenaged cadets from West Florida Seminary’s Day School (now Florida State
University).
Intending
to take the natural bridge that spanned the St. Marks River (and gave the town
its name at the time --- it is now Woodville), the Union forces struck
aggressively at the C.S. force. Driven back, for a time the Grays yielded the
natural bridge to the Blues, but soon regrouped, called for reinforcements, and
drove the Yankees away from the river. The Confederates poured fire into the
Union ranks, especially the U.S.C.T. units, who sustained heavy casualties.
The
Union launched three separate assaults on the Confederate force as the day wore
on. The fight degenerated into hand-to-hand combat with bayonets. Battered but
defiant, the worn-out Southern regiments and irregulars held the natural bridge
against all odds and expectations, denying the Union access to Tallahassee. As
the shadows lengthened, the Union commander called off the attack, and withdrew
down the St. Marks River back to Cedar Key. The Confederates did not
pursue.
The
Union commander, General John Newton, a Virginian by birth, later admitted he
was surprised at the tenacity of the local forces. The Confederate veterans of
the fight afterward expressed the general opinion that the Union too readily
sacrificed U.S.C.T. units. As at Olustee, the Floridian forces were convinced
of the inferiority of black soldiers, though no post-battle butchery of blacks
went on. By now familiar with
Confederate sentiments toward black fighting men, the Union commanders tried to
leave no man behind.
The
Union lost 150 men in the battle, while the Confederates lost only 25. A small
battle in scale, the Battle of Natural Bridge nevertheless was historically
significant as the final Confederate strategic victory of the Civil War. The South held on to Tallahassee, and the
destruction planned for far western Georgia never took place.
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