Showing Florida's Civil War Battles by Stephen Webb

Civil War Florida was an exotic mixture of deep south plantation culture and fever ridden swampland. There was little to distinguish the slave intensive northern rim of the state from Georgia and it was there, in the northern part of the state, that Rebel sentiment was strongest. The remote wilderness of South Florida was like a dark recess of the Amazon. Apart from cracker cowboys rounding up their herds of scrub cattle, most of South and South Central Florida was uninhabited, epecially after the Seminoles were largely transported out of the state. Although the Union felt obliged to occupy certain coastal enclaves and to blockade Florida's long coastline, there was little strategic interest in the state's dark interior. That is, until 1864, when Lincoln decided it might be worth trying to bring Florida back into the Union. Prior to 1864, Florida fought its own little Civil War, almost in isolation, but Lincoln's idea soon blossomed into a full scale invasion and insignificant Florida finally hit the headlines. Much of what happened in the state during the early part of the Civil War went unreported and, even today, Florida's Civil War history is little remarked upon. And yet it presents a fascinating story, which is well worth delving into. This book is not an encyclopedic compendium of every little skirmish or affair that occurred in Florida during the war. Rather, it is an easy to read history of the main events. Although Florida's battles were not large they were remarkably intense, with high casualty rates. The happy 'Sunshine State' that we love today had a dark and bloody past.