By Eric Niderost
The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in November 1860 caused a national crisis of unprecedented scope. For years, Southern firebrands had defended slavery and exalted the principle of states’ rights. Under this theory, each state had the right to secede from the Union if it didn’t agree with national laws or policies. Lincoln and his new Republican party, in their eyes, were abolitionists who wished to free the slaves and fundamentally alter Southern society.
With Lincoln’s election, secessionist talk quickly transformed into action. South Carolina, long a bastion of states’ rights and a staunch defender of the South’s “peculiar institution,” seceded from the Union that December. Soon the trickle became a flood as six more states of the lower South joined South Carolina. By early 1861, the Confederate States of America had been founded with former Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis waiting in the wings to become its first president.
Even before the Confederacy had been formed officially, the Southern states moved to seize all federal property on their soil. This included numerous arsenals, forts, and naval yards. Outgoing President James Buchanan had a major problem on his hands, one that he tried ardently to avoid. Although from Pennsylvania, Buchanan had been generally perceived as pro-Southern throughout much of his tenure in the White House. He was literally marking time—hoping to hand over the secession problem to his successor. He didn’t want to seem weak, but by the same token he didn’t want to bear the onus of starting a bloody civil war. With Lincoln’s inauguration not scheduled to take place until March, Buchanan’s shaky hand remained on the tiller of the increasingly storm-tossed ship of state.
Sensing his weakness and vacillation, the Southern states began seizing federal property with impunity. Fort Sumter, in the middle of Charleston Harbor, was destined to become the flashpoint of the Civil War. But in the early, uncertain months after the 1860 election, Pensacola, Florida, was also a major focus of attention. In some respects Pensacola was even more important than Fort Sumter because it was the home of a major naval yard and three powerful guardian forts.
In 1861, Pensacola was the largest town in Florida, with a population of 2,876. Of that number, 957 were slaves. The town had a thriving timber business, and its railroad connection to Mobile’s transportation hub meant that goods could be shipped almost anywhere within the United States. But Pensacola proper was of secondary importance to Southern military planners. It was obvious that the naval yard would be vital to any seaborne operations in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and the South Atlantic.
Pensacola was only 50 miles east of Mobile and its great bay and 200 miles east of New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi River. Pensacola Bay might well become a staging area in any future quest by national forces to seize New Orleans. Once control of the Mississippi was established, the vast interior of the North American continent would be open to invasion. Pensacola boasted a fine harbor, with the long and narrow Santa Rosa Island protecting ships from ocean-borne storms. It would be ideal for mounting such an invasion.
Pensacola’s strategic importance had been recognized almost as soon as the United States acquired Florida from Spain in 1819. By the mid-1820s, work was well underway for both a naval yard and the fortifications needed to protect it. Planning focused on Pensacola Bay’s western entrance. Forts Pickens, Barrancas, and McRee were designed to guard the harbor mouth with a triangle of mutually supporting fire. Any enemy ship entering the bay would have to run a gauntlet of heavy fire before it could even get near the naval yard.
Fort Barrancas, on the site of an old Spanish fortification on the Florida mainland, was perched atop a clay embankment with its main battery pointing in the direction of the harbor’s mouth. A four-sided polygon, it featured walls that were 20 feet high and four feet thick. Its battlements sported some 44 coastal and garrison cannon, including columbiads and howitzers. By contrast, Fort McRee was a rectangle surrounded by a dry moat. Access to the fort was via a drawbridge that could be raised at night. The distance between Fort McRee and Fort Pickens, across the channel on Santa Rosa Island, was about 2,000 yards, or 1¼ miles. Because they were situated on the mainland, Forts McRee and Barancas were vulnerable to siege from enemy troops coming in from the landward side.
Fort Pickens, occupying a strategic position on the western tip of Santa Rosa Island, was the crown jewel of the trio and the linchpin of Pensacola’s harbor defense. Named for Revolutionary War General Andrew Pickens, the fort had commanding views of the Gulf of Mexico, the mouth of Pensacola Bay, and the bay itself. The fort was a pentagonal structure with four of its five faces close to the water’s edge. Strong bastions that thrust out of the fort’s main walls were designed to hit the flanks of any attacker who attempted to assemble in the dry moat for a general assault. The walls were 13 feet thick and 40 feet high and were designed to absorb a great deal of enemy punishment as well as supporting the weight of heavy cannon. More than 200 seacoast howitzers and cannon made up its armament. In wartime, at least in theory, the installation was supposed to be garrisoned by 1,200 men.
The Pensacola Navy Yard was the U.S. Navy’s pride, a facility that lived up to its early promise. The yard proper covered about 80 acres, the whole protected by a 14-foot-high brick wall. There were a long ship house, several warehouses, a blacksmith shop, a machine shop, a bakery, and four masonry cisterns that could hold 300,000 gallons of fresh water. The iron foundry was capable of producing cannonballs of almost any size. Warrington and Woolsey, two nearby villages, housed 100 civilian workers, and a marine barracks and hospital were located just outside the yard. A massive floating drydock was a key element in the Navy Yard, a facility that had cost the federal government $1 million to construct. The yard had built and launched the steam sloops USS Pensacola and USS Seminole in 1859.
When the secession crisis began in December 1860, there were few federal troops in the area. The Pensacola garrison consisted of about 46 men of Company G, 1st United States Artillery. There was only a handful of marines and sailors stationed at the navy yard, too few to make a difference. The yard’s civilian workers were secessionists to a man, which made them unreliable and untrustworthy. There had been no attempt to reinforce the Pensacola garrison. Because there were far too few men even for a skeleton force in each installation, only Fort Barrancas was manned. The other two forts were virtually abandoned and partly dilapidated due to neglect. The garrison was commanded by Major John Winder, but he was absent on leave, as was his second in command, Lieutenant Asher Eddy. That left 1st Lieutenant Adam Slemmer in nominal charge of the fort.
Slemmer, a native Pennsylvanian, had little sympathy with secession or states’ rights. The first week of January 1861, he heard rumors that Florida Governor Madison S. Perry was poised to order the state militia to seize the forts and all other federal property once the state had seceded from the Union. Alabama state militia had already taken over the forts guarding Mobile Bay. Slemmer consulted with Commodore James Armstrong, commander of the navy yard. Armstrong agreed that, in view of the garrison’s small size, only one fort should be occupied. The choice was obvious—Fort Pickens would be the government’s main base.
Slemmer did all he could to prepare for the worst. Gunpowder that had been stored in an old Spanish battery out on the beach was brought back into the more secure magazine at Barrancas. Guards were posted, and the drawbridge at the fort entrance was raised at night. These security measures were soon put to the test. On the night of January 8, 20 unidentified men approached the fort. They were spotted by a sergeant of the guard, who raised the alarm. A sentry challenged them, and when he did not get a response he opened fire—perhaps the first shots fired in the Civil War.
After the gunfire, Slemmer transferred his men to Fort Pickens. All arrived safely, but they could not rest on their laurels. Many of the fort’s guns were not mounted, so the artillerymen went to work at once preparing Pickens for action. Most of the powder and ammunition were also transferred to Santa Rosa Island to keep it out of enemy hands. Fort Barrancas’ guns were spiked as a final gesture of military prudence.
On January 10, a special Florida convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of secession. The rumors were true—Governor Perry did intend to seize the Pensacola arsenal and the forts that guarded it. Alabama Governor Andrew Moore helpfully dispatched some of his own state militia to assist the Floridians, with Colonel Tennent Lomax and 225 militiamen hurrying to Florida to augment Perry’s force. Two days later Armstrong was informed that a representative of the state of Florida was at the east gate of the navy yard. The gentleman was not alone. Also on hand were between 600 and 800 uniformed Alabama and Florida militiamen. The commodore destroyed all his signal books—a necessary precaution—and then went to see his unwanted guests. The visitors demanded that Armstrong unconditionally surrender the navy yard. If he did not, they said, the eager militia would be more than happy to take the yard by force.
Armstrong had few options. He had only 38 marines and a few sailors on hand, far too few to mount an effective defense. To avoid pointless bloodshed, the commodore chose to surrender. The American flag was hauled down and the Florida state flag raised in its place. When ordered to perform the distasteful task, Quartermaster William Conway refused. The old salt declared, “I have served under that flag for forty years; I won’t do it.” Conway was jailed by the Confederates for his impertinence but later received a gold medal and commendation from U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. When the American flag was lowered, the action was noticed by a sentry across the bay at Fort Pickens. Two federal ships stationed at the navy yard, USS Wyandotte and the storage ship Supply, were crewed by loyal Union men. They immediately weighed anchor and sailed to a position five miles off Santa Rosa Island, well out of reach of hostile hands.
As night approached and retreat was sounded, another delegation of Southerners appeared at Fort Pickens and asked for an interview with Slemmer. The men demanded that Slemmer, like Armstrong, surrender the fort. Slemmer stood his ground and refused to be intimidated. “I am under the orders of the President of the United States and I recognize no right of any governor to demand the surrender of United States property,” he said. The delegation left abruptly.
Sooner or later the secessionists were going to try and take the fort—that was a certainty. All Slemmer and his small garrison could do was to continue defense preparations as best they could. It was cold and miserable, and intermittent rain dampened spirits as well as clothes. On January 17, the exhausted garrison mounted a 12-pounder cannon and an 8-inch seacoast howitzer within the northeast bastion facing the landward approaches to the north. Special attention was devoted to the possibility of an all-out attack by ground troops. Several 24-pounder howitzers were mounted within bastion casemates and sited to fire into the ranks of any attackers gathering in the dry moat for such an assault.
The Floridians and Alabamians still hoped to bluff and threaten their way into Fort Pickens. Accordingly, they brought forward Colonel W.H. Chase, who had a unique connection to Fort Pickens. As a young Army engineer, Chase had designed the instillation. Chase was rowed over to Pickens and requested an interview with Slemmer. The young lieutenant was courteous but firm. Chase suggested that they go inside to discuss issues, but Slemmer declined. “It would be improper for me to take you in,” he said, “and however well you may have known the fort before, you do not know what it now contains, nor what I have done inside.”
Chase produced a paper from his pocket but faltered when he tried to read it. His eyes filled with tears as he explained that it was a “most distressing duty” to demand the surrender of a U.S. Army garrison. But the sentimental moment passed, and Chase and Slemmer resumed their verbal duel. “How many men do you have?” Slemmer asked. “Between eight and nine hundred,” Chase replied. “Do you imagine you could take this fort with that number?” Slemmer asked. “I certainly do,” the Southerner replied. “I could carry it by storm. I know every inch of this fort and its condition.” Chase did concede he might lose half his men in the attempt. Angered by Slemmer’s stubbornness, Chase told the lieutenant frankly: “You cannot hold this fort. Florida cannot permit it, and the [Southern] troops here are determined to have it and if not surrendered peaceably, an attack and the inauguration of civil war cannot be prevented.”
Slemmer said he would give the surrender letter due consideration, and the meeting ended. Slemmer was still determined to hold out, but by stalling a bit he hoped to gain his tired artillerymen a brief respite. Eventually, Slemmer gave Chase his answer. He would defend the post to the best of his ability. He added, speaking of the Florida and Alabama forces, “We must consider you the aggressors, and if blood is shed, you are responsible therefore.”
The secessionists suddenly became more conciliatory. Chase even offered to send fresh provisions to the fort if needed. On January 18, nine pro-secession senators sent a telegram to Chase warning him against a premature assault on Pickens. “The possession of the fort,” they declared, “is not worth one drop of blood to us. Bloodshed may be fatal to our cause.” Among those signing the document was Jefferson Davis, who in a few weeks would become the first president of the Confederate States of America. Before long Florida Senator Stephen Mallory—later Confederate secretary of the navy—and others brokered a truce with President Buchanan. Both sides pledged not to engage in any aggressive actions.
The informal pact suited both parties. Buchanan was rid of one headache—Sumter was another—and he still hoped to end his presidency in peace. The secessionists, for their part, needed more time to organize an effective government, and they did not want to be blamed for starting a war. Meanwhile, on January 23, Captain Israel Vogdes was directed to take his Company A, 1st U.S. Artillery, to Pensacola Bay aboard the sloop of war USS Brooklyn. Vogdes was under strict orders not to start any offensive action, and the troops were directed to stay aboard ship and only land if the Southerners attacked. In general, both sides scrupulously observed the terms of the pact
In March, the fledgling Confederate government decided that Pensacola Bay was too important to be neglected any longer. General Braxton Bragg was sent to Pensacola as its new regional commander and given 5,000 troops to strengthen Confederate positions. Union forces at Fort Pickens immediately noticed the Southern troop buildup. When reports of the move reached Washington, the new Lincoln administration became alarmed. Colonel Harvey Brown was given command of army forces in Florida and sent to Pensacola with an additional four companies of troops. Like Vogdes, Brown was told to stay strictly on the defensive. Two additional warships, the frigate USS Sabine and the sloop USS St. Louis, joined federal naval forces in the area.
On April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter. Lincoln instantly called for volunteers to crush the rebellion. In response, five more Southern states joined the Confederacy. The Civil War had begun, and the Pensacola truce was over. Oddly enough, nothing much happened for the next six months. Both sides strengthened their positions around Pensacola Bay, and Union reinforcements were landed. An unofficial truce continued.
The uneasy truce ended in September, when Bragg decided to transform the navy yard’s drydock into a floating gun battery. Once finished, it could be towed into the bay to engage Fort Pickens. This was unacceptable to Brown, who considered it an act of hostility against Union forces. Brown organized a raid of his own to deal with the threat.
On September 2, a party of Union raiders rowed over to the drydock under cover of darkness and managed to set it ablaze. Flames shot into the air, illuminating the navy yard with a lurid, shadowy glow. Brown’s next target was the Confederate schooner William H. Judah, anchored in Pensacola Bay. No mere peaceful trading vessel, Judah was armed with five cannon, which gave her the power to run the Union blockade outside the bay’s sheltered waters. It was decided that the raid was a job for the Navy—or more particularly, the United States Marine Corps.
About 100 marines and sailors from the flagship USS Colorado were chosen for the task. Navy Lieutenant John H. Russell was the overall commander of the raid; Captain Edward McDonald Reynolds headed the marines. The expedition assembled in four small boats and cautiously approached the target by means of muffled oars. The raiders managed to get alongside Judah, but the Confederates were more alert than their attackers anticipated. The crew opened fire at once, spraying the raiders with heavy leaden rain.
The marines returned fire, fixed bayonets, and scrambled up the ship’s sides to the main deck. Russell, sword in hand, led the way. For a few chaotic minutes the ship’s crew fought hand to hand with the onrushing marines. Judah’s crew was forced to retreat to a nearby dock. But more and more Southerners were arriving on the scene, drawn to the noise of battle and the sounds of alarm.
While the crewmen rallied, Russell found himself in full possession of the Confederate schooner. There was a cannon reportedly on or near the drydock, and Russell ordered Lieutenant John G. Sproston and a party of men to find the gun and spike it. This was no easy task since it was now quite dark. If they used lanterns, torches, or other such devices to light their way, the raiders were sure to draw enemy fire. Groping their way through the inky void, the raiders somehow managed find the cannon, a 10-inch columbiad guarded by only one sentry. The sentry leveled his rifle at Sproston, but Gunner’s Mate John D. Barton shot the sentry before he could fire his weapon. The cannon was spiked, and Sproston’s group rejoined the main party of raiders.
Judah was put to the torch, orange-yellow flames leaping high into the sky and casting deep shadows on the waters of Pensacola Bay. The crew continued its heavy fire, but the raiders managed to reach safety without further incident. Federal casualties were light, three dead and 13 wounded. A furious Bragg immediately began making plans for a vengeful counterattack. Bragg, a tough, seasoned campaigner and veteran of the Mexican War, refused to be goaded into premature action. He reorganized his forces—some 6,000 strong—into two brigades, one commanded by Brig. Gen. Daniel Ruggles, the other by Brig. Gen. Richard Anderson. It was decided that Anderson would attack Santa Rosa Island.
On the evening of October 9, Anderson assembled his men at the navy yard and had them board the waiting steamer Time, which raised anchor and headed for Pensacola, the final staging area for the nocturnal assault. The steamer arrived in Pensacola at 10 pm. The steamers Ewing and Neaffie joined the expedition. To make the landings go more smoothly, some of Anderson’s men transferred to Ewing, others to barges that would be towed by Neaffie.
Anderson’s men had trained for amphibious landings for weeks, and their hard work paid off in spades. The Confederates landed on Santa Rosa Island without undue noise or confusion, about four miles from Fort Pickens. The men were ordered to maintain strict discipline, especially when it came to the premature firing of their rifles and muskets. It was hoped that Union pickets would be surprised and taken before they could raise an alarm. The immediate target was a Union cantonment located about a mile east of Fort Pickens. The camp was occupied by men of the 6th New York Volunteers, called Wilson’s Zouaves after their commander, Colonel William Wilson, a colorful New York politician who had trained the regiment’s pet goat to butt and ram on command.
If all went according to plan, Anderson’s troops would swing around and place themselves between Fort Pickens and the 6th New York’s camp, cutting off their retreat. The Confederates were initially eager for a fight, having waited for this moment for 10 long and tedious months. Their enthusiasm soon waned after they discovered that the island was studded with prickly pear cactus and troublesome sand spurs. A scattering of scouts led the way to take on the Union picket screen. There were about 1,200 Confederates, more of a large-scale raid than a full-blown assault on Fort Pickens. Nevertheless, if they could move fast enough, they might gain access to the fort itself. Failing that, Anderson hoped at least to spike some Union batteries located outside the fort. Suddenly, a shot rang out. A Union picket had spotted an approaching Confederate scout and fired his weapon. He paid for his alertness with his life—the raiders shot him down—but the camp was warned of the enemy threat.
Wilson tried to organize a battle line—no word on the goat—as his rudely awakened men tumbled from their tents and rubbed the sleep from their eyes. In the darkness, confusion soon gave way to panic. The New Yorkers began to fall back toward the fort, leaving Wilson and a determined handful of men to try to stem the Confederate flood. The Confederates swept forward, but some of them apparently believed the battle was already over. The raiders began to loot the abandoned tents, slowing their advance. The search for booty, coupled with Wilson’s stubborn holding action, was fatal to the raiders’ plan. The chance for victory slowly slipped from their grasp. In the end, only nine Federals were taken prisoner.
At 3:30 am, Brown was roused from his sleep and told the sound of firing had been heard in the direction of the 6th New York’s camp. Brown ordered a full alert, and the garrison sprang to arms and readied to repel the invaders. The colonel also sent Vogdes and two companies of regulars to bolster the New Yorkers’ fight. Strengthened by the regulars, the New Yorkers rallied. After much confusion and seesaw fighting, the Federals gained the upper hand, although Vogdes was captured in the process. (He was later exchanged, served out the war, and became a brigadier general in the postwar Army.) Now it was the Confederates’ turn to fall back, and Anderson admitted defeat. His men fled for their barges with the Federals close behind. The bluecoats poured volley after volley into the retreating troops. Many Confederates were killed or wounded, including Anderson, who took a bullet to the elbow while directing the withdrawal. The Southern forces sailed back across the bay to Pensacola proper.
Casualty figures varied widely. The North claimed 14 killed, with another 29 wounded and 14 missing. The Confederates lost at least 18 dead, 39 wounded, and 30 missing. Some accounts placed Confederate losses even higher. The affair was quickly dubbed the Battle of Santa Rosa Island. Harper’s Weekly on November 9 gave a detailed description of the fight but censured Wilson for alleged “inefficiency and lack of skill” in defending the camp. The publication charged that Wilson had arrived late on the scene and that because of his negligence the cantonment had been torched and looted by rampaging Confederates. Nothing was said of his rearguard action.
On November 22, Federal forces bombarded Confederate emplacements on the mainland. The effort included the guns of Fort Pickens and Batteries Lincoln, Cameron, and Totten on Santa Rosa Island. Additional fire support was provided by USS Richmond and USS Niagara, steaming offshore. Fort McRee was a major target of the Union bombardment. Its garrison of Mississippians and Georgians was exposed to a hurricane of shot and shell. Part of the fort’s woodwork was set ablaze, a conflagration that threatened to engulf the entire building. The fires were soon put under control, but a nearby wooden building also caught fire, and winds blew sparks perilously near the fort’s magazine. Colonel John B. Villepique, the commander at Fort McRee, was wounded but refused to abandon his post. The fort’s batteries returned fire as best they could.
The bombardment ended after eight ear-splitting, terrifying hours. Fort McRee fared the worst with half its guns dismounted and its outer walls pockmarked by shell hits. One section of wall collapsed. In view of its battered condition, Villepique asked Anderson for permission to abandon the fort. Anderson refused, chiefly because he feared the effect such an action would have on Confederate morale.
The Union bombardment resumed at 10 the next morning. Brown ordered the gun chiefs of his 10-inch columbiads and 42-pounders to maintain a steady rate of fire—one shell every 15 minutes. By contrast, the mortars were fired about once every half hour. Eventually, nearly all Confederate guns were knocked out of commission. The naval yard sustained some damage, and the nearby villages of Warrington and Woolsey were soon ablaze from hot shot and shell. Union cannon ceased fire at nightfall, but mortars continued a barrage until 2 am. In all, the Federals expended some 5,000 rounds of ammunition in the artillery duel, while the Confederates expended some 1,000 rounds.
In May 1862, the Confederates abandoned Pensacola. New Orleans had fallen to Federal forces, and the troops tied up at Pensacola were needed elsewhere. The city’s acting mayor, John Brosnaham, formally surrendered to Union Lieutenant Richard Jackson on May 10. Pensacola and its facilities became an important base for the Union’s Western Gulf Squadron and its blockade of the Confederate coast. Fort Barrancas served as an important staging area for Federal raids into Alabama and western Florida.
Thanks to Slemmer and his handful of artillerymen, Fort Pickens was the only Federal post in the South never seized by the Confederates. Had the two sides not patched together a temporary truce, Fort Pickens, not Fort Sumter, might well have been the flashpoint of the Civil War. Instead, it became merely a dusty footnote in the annals of the greater war.
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