Tampa Bay Times: Florida’s Battle of Olustee and the true meaning of sacrifice
In a few desperate hours on a February afternoon in 1864, Union and Confederate troops clashed in the largest Civil War battle in Florida. Ten thousand soldiers fought in the Battle of Olustee, and when the guns went silent that night, more than a quarter of the men were killed, wounded or missing. Union soldiers suffered about one-third of the casualties, including large numbers of Black volunteers who fought not just for their country but for their place within it.
As an historian of the Civil War, I believe the meaning of that war, and of American citizenship itself, can often be found in oft-forgotten places such as Olustee, 45 miles west of Jacksonville. This upcoming Memorial Day, let’s take a moment to understand why.
By February 1864, Union forces already controlled the port city of Jacksonville and planned to push inland to sever Confederate rail lines carrying Florida’s critical food supplies north to rebel troops. They also hoped to recruit more Black soldiers and perhaps even isolate Florida from the other Confederate states to both force the state out of the war and the Confederacy itself. It was not to be.
Expecting light opposition, the Union general, Truman Seymour, marched his 5,500 men out to the pine forest along the Florida, Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad near Ocean Pond, just south of where Interstate 10 runs today. On Feb. 20, they met well-positioned rebel forces and were violently thrown back, as Confederate forces under the command of Brig. Gen. Joseph Finegan and reinforced by Gen. Alfred H. Colquitt held a well-prepared defensive line. As Union forces advanced piecemeal through dense pine forests and without adequate reconnaissance, they were met with coordinated volleys that shattered their lines and forced a retreat.