Florida in the Civil War, 1861 to 1865

Florida left the Union in January 1861, sent troops and supplies to the Confederacy, saw Union forces occupy many coastal towns and forts, and saw no decisive battle on its soil, in the summary of the Florida Department of State (Department of State).

The state was thinly settled. The Division of Historical Resources puts 1860s Florida at around 150,000 people in total, with little industry for making war materials (Division of Historical Resources). The State Archives calls Florida the forgotten state of the Confederacy, of little strategic importance to either side but a vital source of beef and salt (Florida Memory).

The archives' Civil War records guide describes the four years as economic hardship, naval blockade, internal dissension, battle and final defeat, from January 1861, when war threatened to break out in Pensacola, to the surrender of Confederate forces in May 1865 (State Archives records guide). Last verified: October 18, 2026, by rereading the Department of State Reconstruction chapter, four State Archives pages including the 1861 Ordinance transcript, and the current Florida State Parks listings for Olustee and Natural Bridge.

A convention in Tallahassee adopted the Ordinance of Secession on January 10, 1861, by 62 votes to 7 among 69 eligible delegates, and the document carries 65 signatures (State Archives, Ordinance of Secession).

The steps came quickly after the presidential election. Two State Archives pages give Lincoln's election as November 6, 1860, while the archives' own timeline lists it under November 7 (Florida Memory overview; Ordinance of Secession page; Florida Memory timeline). The timeline records that Governor Madison Perry signed a bill on November 30 calling a convention, that delegates were elected December 22, and that the convention opened January 3, 1861 (timeline).

The records guide adds that every elected delegate backed secession; the argument was over timing, between cooperationists who wanted to wait for other states and radicals who wanted to leave at once. Florida became the third state out, after South Carolina and Mississippi (records guide). On January 4, convention radicals authorized Perry to seize federal property. State troops took the arsenal at Chattahoochee and Fort Marion at St. Augustine, but Union troops held on to Fort Taylor at Key West, Fort Jefferson at the Dry Tortugas and Fort Pickens at Pensacola (records guide).

Florida helped organize the new government: its delegates met with six other Southern states at Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4, 1861 (timeline). The original Ordinance is held at the State Archives as Series S 972, and its transcript is online (State Archives).

Florida's main contributions were men, salt and beef: the Department of State counts an estimated 15,000 troops along with salt, beef, pork and cotton (Department of State).

Most of those soldiers served far from home. The records guide says about 6,000 of the 15,000 fought in the western armies, and Florida infantry regiments in Virginia formed a Florida Brigade that surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865 (records guide). Beef grew in importance late in the war. Once the Confederacy lost the Mississippi River, the State Archives says, Texas beef was almost cut off and Florida cattle became a critical food source for the army (Florida Memory).

Salt came from coastal works that heated seawater in giant iron kettles over fires until the water evaporated; one such kettle was used near Steinhatchee in Taylor County. The fires made the works visible targets for blockading ships, and the Union often raided what the Division of Historical Resources calls a multi-million-dollar war industry (Division of Historical Resources). Union warships destroyed a large number of saltworks at Lake Ocala and West Bay between December 2 and 15, 1863 (timeline).

Enslaved labor ran much of this. The records guide counts over 61,000 enslaved people in Florida in 1861 and says Confederate authorities used them as teamsters and as workers in salt works and fisheries; many used the presence of Union blockading vessels and coastal raids to escape, and more than a thousand who reached Union lines enlisted (records guide).

Union troops held the main coastal forts and towns for most of the war, while the interior stayed in Confederate hands (Department of State).

Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island stayed in Union hands when state troops seized other federal posts in 1861 (records guide). The National Park Service says the fort was completed in October 1834 and was then the largest brick structure on the Gulf of Mexico, and that a Union cannon inside it opened the first bombardment of Pensacola Bay on November 22, 1861 (National Park Service). The State Archives timeline records a Confederate landing on Santa Rosa Island on October 9, 1861, with 87 Confederate casualties and Federal losses of 62 killed, wounded and missing (timeline).

The northeast coast fell in March 1862 after most Confederate troops were withdrawn: Fernandina on March 4, then St. Augustine and Jacksonville on March 11 to 12. St. Augustine stayed in Union hands for the rest of the war; Jacksonville was occupied four separate times (timeline). The records guide adds that Federal troops were at Cedar Keys as early as January 1862 and that Key West stayed under Federal control throughout, with martial law from May 1861 (records guide). Fort Clinch, begun in 1847 to guard Fernandina at the mouth of the St. Marys River, was never fully completed but served as a military post during the war (Florida State Parks).

Some Floridians fought for the Union. The Department of State says more than 2,000, both African American and white, joined the Union army (Department of State), and the records guide names the two regiments raised in the state, the First and Second Florida U.S. Cavalry, recruited from December 1863 (records guide).

Olustee on February 20, 1864, was the largest Civil War battle in the state, and Natural Bridge in 1865 the second largest, according to Florida State Parks (Olustee park; Natural Bridge park).

Sources count Olustee in different ways. The timeline gives over 5,000 men on each side, and the park page more than 10,000 troops in all (timeline; Florida State Parks). The records guide lists losses of 946 Confederates and 1,861 Federals and says the defeat ended Union plans to bring Florida back into the United States in 1864 (records guide). Three U.S. Colored Troops regiments fought there, including the 54th Massachusetts (Florida State Parks).

At Natural Bridge, a Union flotilla landed at Apalachee Bay aiming to take Fort Ward and march on the capital; volunteers from the Tallahassee area, Confederate soldiers, old men and young boys, turned back three major attacks where the St. Marks River runs underground (Florida State Parks). The records guide puts the Union force at some 600 troops under John Newton (records guide).

Union General Edward McCook accepted the surrender of Confederate troops at Tallahassee on May 10, 1865, and smaller groups surrendered around the state through the rest of the month (State Archives timeline).

The records guide adds that McCook had the United States flag raised over the Capitol in a formal ceremony on May 20 (records guide). The Department of State notes that Tallahassee was the only Southern capital east of the Mississippi River to avoid capture during the war, spared by the Olustee and Natural Bridge victories, until federal troops occupied it on May 10, 1865 (Department of State).

Peace changed the economy and the law. The Department of State says the ports of Jacksonville and Pensacola revived on demand for lumber, enslaved people were declared free, and much of the land came under cultivation by tenant farmers and sharecroppers, African American and white (Department of State). Congressional Reconstruction began in Florida in 1868; federal troops were still in the state at the 1876 presidential election, and Democrats then took enough state offices to end Republican rule and bring the troops' removal the following year (Department of State).

Both main battlefields are state parks, and Fort Pickens and Fort Clinch stand inside national and state parks (Olustee; Natural Bridge; Fort Pickens; Fort Clinch).

Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park, at 5815 Battlefield Trail Road in Sanderson (386-758-0400), is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with no entrance fee, though a special event fee applies during the February reenactment. Florida State Parks posts that the park museum is closed effective July 16, 2026, while the park page still lists a picnic area and a mile-long trail with interpretive signs (Florida State Parks). The park's history page dates its memorial to 1909, when the Legislature bought three acres, and says the reenactment falls on the second weekend in February (Olustee history).

Natural Bridge Battlefield Historic State Park, at 7502 Natural Bridge Road in Tallahassee (850-487-7989), opens 8 a.m. to sunset; fees are $3 per vehicle through an honor box that needs correct change, and its reenactment is held the first full weekend in March (Florida State Parks). The state bought nearly 55 acres next to the battlefield in February 2009 to protect a first magnitude spring (Natural Bridge history).

Fort Pickens is part of Gulf Islands National Seashore; the park's mailing address is 1801 Gulf Breeze Parkway, Gulf Breeze, and its phone is 850-934-2600 (National Park Service). The State Archives keeps the Ordinance of Secession and other Civil War records, described in its online guide (records guide).