Jacksonville in the Civil War: Four Union Occupations and the Sites That Remain

Union forces occupied Jacksonville four separate times during the Civil War, the first from March 12 to April 9, 1862 (National Park Service).

The state marker at the Fort Hatch site makes the same count from the other side, saying the St. Johns River port changed hands four times before it finally ended up under Union control (Florida Division of Historical Resources). A 2012 Timucuan Preserve release adds that Atlanta, Richmond, Charleston and Savannah were each occupied only once, and that from 1862 Union naval vessels patrolled the St. Johns River as far south as Palatka (NPS news release).

The same release describes what the Jacksonville occupations cost residents: homes destroyed, belongings looted, livestock slaughtered, boats and ferries burned and the city's famous live oaks cut down for shipbuilding, with widespread hunger and disease and almost no medical aid (NPS).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against three National Park Service pages, the Fort Hatch, Maple Leaf, Mulberry Grove and Midway church markers, the state history museum's Olustee exhibit and the City of Jacksonville's Camp Milton page.

A combined Army and Navy force entered Jacksonville on March 12, 1862 and stayed less than a month, long enough for local Unionists to declare the city loyal to the United States (NPS).

The Park Service history names John Sammis, owner of Strawberry Plantation in what is now Jacksonville's Arlington neighborhood, as one of the Unionists who passed a resolution pledging the city's loyalty in defiance of Florida's secession ordinance (NPS). When federal forces hastily evacuated, Sammis and his household, free and enslaved, boarded naval vessels to escape feared retribution from returning Confederates.

For enslaved people the withdrawal was a setback. Union commanders in that first Jacksonville occupation protected the property of enslavers who stayed loyal, and emancipation was not among the military's objectives, the NPS study says (NPS). Some freedom seekers were carried to Fernandina and St. Augustine, or to colonies on St. Simons Island and Hilton Head Island, or to camps forming at Mayport Mills at the river mouth, while scores were left behind under Confederate control.

White families moved too. The state marker for Mulberry Grove Plantation says Jacksonville businessman Arthur M. Reed took his family to live on the plantation in 1862 when Union forces occupied the town; that marker stands on Mustin Road in a housing area of Naval Air Station Jacksonville (state marker).

The Battle of St. Johns Bluff, in September and October 1862, ended with Confederates abandoning a river battery near Jacksonville after Union troops landed behind it, and the National Park Service records it as a Union victory (NPS battle detail FL003).

The battery was built to stop Federal ships moving up the St. Johns River, according to the NPS record, which credits Brig. Gen. John Finegan with establishing it (NPS). On September 30, Brig. Gen. John M. Brannan embarked about 1,500 infantry at Hilton Head, South Carolina, on the transports Boston, Ben DeFord, Cosmopolitan and Neptune; the flotilla reached the river mouth on October 1 and joined Cdr. Charles Steedman's gunboats.

Brannan landed troops at Mayport Mills while a second force came ashore at Mount Pleasant Creek, about five miles behind the battery, and marched overland on October 2 (NPS). Outmaneuvered, Lt. Col. Charles F. Hopkins abandoned the position after dark, and when the gunboats approached the next day the guns were silent. The NPS battle record leaves its counts of forces engaged and casualties at zero.

The bluff stands about ninety feet above the south side of the St. Johns River, and the Timucuan Preserve scheduled a 150th anniversary living history weekend for the battle at Fort Caroline National Memorial on October 20 and 21, 2012 (NPS news release).

Jacksonville was the Union landing point for the February 1864 expedition into the Florida interior, and the place the defeated Union troops returned to after the Battle of Olustee (Museum of Florida History).

The state history museum, part of the Florida Department of State, says the expedition was commanded by Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour and that the battle involved approximately 11,000 soldiers in all, with 1,861 Union and 946 Confederate casualties (Museum of Florida History). It names the Confederate commander as Brig. Gen. Joseph Finegan; the NPS St. Johns Bluff record gives the 1862 battery builder as John Finegan (NPS), and neither source reconciles the first names.

To hold Jacksonville, the Union Army ringed the city in 1864 with chest high breastworks and nine gun batteries, the state marker says (state marker, Fort Hatch). Fort Hatch, at West Adams and North Davis streets, held barracks, mess halls and medical facilities, and housed members of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, which numbered about 500 by Olustee and retreated there after the defeat.

Confederates dug in to the west. In February and March 1864, more than 8,000 troops built three miles of earth and timber fortifications along the west bank of McGirts Creek as the first line of defense against the Union forces in Jacksonville, at a site named Camp Milton for Florida Governor John Milton (City of Jacksonville).

The river stayed dangerous. On April 1, 1864, the Union transport Maple Leaf struck one of twelve Confederate mines off Mandarin Point, about 15 miles upriver from the marker on the North Bank Riverwalk, while carrying 68 passengers and crew from Palatka, including 42 Union sympathizers; four crew members died (state marker, Maple Leaf).

Many came from places scattered across the St. Johns River in and around the Timucuan Preserve near Jacksonville, according to a National Park Service study of United States Colored Troops (NPS).

The study lists Mayport Mills, Pilot Town, Fort George Island, St. Johns Bluff, Yellow Bluff, Strawberry Plantation, Clapboard Creek and Greenfield Peninsula among the home places of the Jacksonville area veterans. Most of the Jacksonville area men who enlisted joined a United States Colored Infantry regiment and others joined the Navy, the study says (NPS). Freedom seekers often took small boats or swam to reach Navy ships patrolling the St. Johns, and brought them information about Confederate activity. The 34th USCI, the regiment of one veteran profiled in the study, was assigned to Jacksonville from October 1865 to January 1866, after the Confederate surrender.

The study also links Jacksonville's Black river communities to a federal heritage designation. It says the Park Service has recognized Cosmo and Fulton as part of the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor, and that at least six Gullah Geechee communities have been recognized in the Jacksonville area: Brooklyn, Cosmo, Eastside, LaVilla, Pine Forest and West Lewisville (NPS). The state marker for Mother Midway A.M.E. Church records that the congregation was organized on June 10, 1865, a few weeks after the Confederate Army in Florida surrendered, as the first Black independent church organized in Florida (state marker).

Camp Milton Historic Preserve, at 1225 Halsema Road N in west Jacksonville, is the City's Civil War preserve, opened to the public in September 2006 with a wheelchair accessible trail (City of Jacksonville).

The City says a portion of the Camp Milton earthworks was found in 1973, the State of Florida bought the first tract in 1981 and leased it to the City, and more land was added through Preservation Project Jacksonville and its partners (City of Jacksonville). The preserve lists parking, restrooms, a hiking trail and an equestrian trail among its amenities.

Two state markers in Jacksonville mark Civil War sites: Fort Hatch, in the 800 block of West Adams Street at North Davis Street, and Maple Leaf, on the North Bank Riverwalk at the foot of Hogan Street (Florida Division of Historical Resources). The Maple Leaf wreck was located in 1981, hundreds of artifacts have been recovered, and the marker calls the site a National Landmark.

For St. Johns Bluff, the Timucuan Preserve scheduled its 2012 anniversary living history programs at Fort Caroline National Memorial, 12713 Fort Caroline Road in the East Arlington section of Jacksonville; the memorial's phone is 904-641-7155 (NPS news release).