Volume XXXIV January, 1956 Number 3
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Florida Historical Quarterly Volume 34 Issue 3 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 34, Article 1 Issue 3 1955 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34, Issue 3 Florida Historical Society [email protected] Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Florida Historical Quarterly by an authorized editor of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Recommended Citation Society, Florida Historical (1955) "Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34, Issue 3," Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 34 : Iss. 3 , Article 1. Available at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol34/iss3/1 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34, Issue 3 Volume XXXIV January, 1956 Number 3 The FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY CONTENTS The Struggle for Control of the Florida Central Railroad, 1867- 1882 by Paul E. Fenlon The Railroads and the Public Lands of Florida, 1879-1905 by J. E. Dovell State Aid for Indigent Soldiers and Their Families in Florida, 1861-1865 by William Frank Zornow Mission to the Creek Indians in 1794 by Richard K. Murdoch Book Review News and Notes (Copyright, 1956, by the Florida Historical Society. Reentered as second class matter November 21, 1947, at the post office at Tallahassee, Florida, under the Act of August 24, 1912.) Office of publication, Tallahassee, Florida Published quarterly by THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Gainesville, Florida Published by STARS, 1955 1 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34 [1955], Iss. 3, Art. 1 https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol34/iss3/1 2 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34, Issue 3 THE STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OF THE FLORIDA CENTRAL RAILROAD, 1867-1882 by PAUL E. FENLON A golden age of laissez-faire capitalism began throughout the United States within a few years after Appomattox. This was an age of economic expansion which, led by railroad de- velopments, transformed the United States within a generation, changing this country from an essentially agricultural nation into one of the most powerful industrial nations in the world. This era of transformation is sometimes called the period of the great- est industrial revolution in the history of mankind, but it was also a time when skillful financial manipulators fleeced thousands of investors and when there was widespread corruption of many local, state and federal legislators and officials. 1 This age of economic progress, low business ethics, and cor- ruption was not restricted to any particular section of the United States, though these three attributes were found to varying de- grees in the different sections of the country. In the South, where economic progress lagged behind the achievements real- ized in the North and the West, the recently humbled Confed- erate States were surrendered to the mercies of Reconstruction government, thus providing a substantial basis for violations of the principles of sound business and government operations and making the establishment of a new, dynamic socio-economic in- stitution almost impossible to achieve. The Florida Central Railroad was one of the many business 1. Charles A. and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (New York: Macmillan Company, 1930), II, 178: “Combinations and their enemies are seen operating in legislatures and courts, drawing law- makers, governors, and judges into one structural pattern. Bribery, in- trigue, and threats are matched by blackmail until the closest observer often fails to discover where honor begins and corruption ends.” Frederick Hicks, High Finance in the Sixties (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929), 1: “the manipulators, fearless of public opinion, unrestrained and even aided by judges, lawmakers and executives, treated investors’ money as their own.“ 213 Published by STARS, 1955 3 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34 [1955], Iss. 3, Art. 1 214 FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY concerns which were caught up in the fast moving flow of con- fusing events which followed the Civil War. An account of a fifteen year struggle for its control is presented on the following pages. This account has been prepared largely from facts found in the files of the personal and business papers of Captain Edward M. L’Engle, one of the principal participants in the struggle. It is, therefore, in many ways the story of how Captain L’Engle, a native Southerner, responded to the changed circumstances of business life in Florida as well as being an account of the fifteen year conflict over the Florida Central. The Railroad The Florida Central’s lines extended from the port of Jack- sonville to the inland town of Lake City, where they were joined by the tracks of another railroad, providing a cross-state trans- portation route through what had been the most rapidly develop- ing section of Florida in the decade before the Civil War. The route had come into existence only a few years before the out- break of the Civil War. Its main purpose was to provide means of transportation for the cotton grown in the interior sections of north-central Florida. Another reason for its construction was the belief that more people would settle in the area serviced by it, and that, thereby, the value of the land in the area would increase substantially. With an established source of traffic, cot- ton, and the possibility of increased settlement and prosperity, the cross-state route seemed destined to achieve great financial success. The outcome of the Civil War changed all this. The plantation system, upon which the successful production of cotton seemed to depend, was no longer feasible. The develop- ment of the interior portion of Florida became much more prob- lematical. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol34/iss3/1 4 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34, Issue 3 Published by STARS, 1955 5 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34 [1955], Iss. 3, Art. 1 https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol34/iss3/1 6 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34, Issue 3 STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OF RAILROAD 215 Captain L’Engle Though the outlook for the Florida Central in post-Civil War Florida was uncertain and confusing, it was no more so than was the future which Captain Edward M. L’Engle faced when he returned to his native state after serving for four years in the Confederate army. L’Engle was a descendant of some of the earliest, most suc- cessful, and most influential settlers of Florida. 2 For five years before the Civil War he had been a successful lawyer in Ocala, Florida, but he returned to Florida to find that the judicial system of his state was controlled by a coalition of Northern carpet- baggers and Southern scalawags. Because he refused to give up or pretend to relinquish his support of the traditions of the Old South, he found it impossible to again take up the flourishing legal practice which he had developed in ante bellum Florida. He, along with others of like attitude, gave serious consideration to the possibility of joining with hundreds of other Southerners who set out to establish new lives for themselves and their fami- lies in Europe, South America, or Mexico, but he decided to remain in Florida. This decision led to his acceptance of a partnership in the law firm of Sanderson and L’Engle in Jacksonville. Colonel John P. Sanderson, the senior partner, was to handle most of the firm’s contacts with the Reconstruction courts and L’Engle was to deal mainly with the preparation of legal briefs and most of the more routine affairs of the partnership. Within a year after L’Engle joined Sanderson, however, he be- came involved in a series of legal and financial maneuvers which forced him into close contact with financial supporters of the Republican leaders and which occupied most of his time and 2. Unless otherwise noted, all data and quotations contained in the re- mainder of this article are taken from the E. M. L’Engle Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina. Published by STARS, 1955 7 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34 [1955], Iss. 3, Art. 1 216 FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY efforts during the next one and one-half decades. These maneu- vers started in 1867, when Captain L’Engle represented George W. Swepson, one of the South’s most notorious railroad pro- moters, in Swepson’s first effort to secure control of the Florida Central Railroad. They continued until 1882, when, in accord- ance with decisions of the United States Supreme Court, the Florida Central was sold at public auction. Early in the fifteen year period during which L’Engle was associated with the struggle for control of the Florida Central he became convinced that Swepson, Swepson’s close associate, Milton S. Littlefield, and several other men who became inter- ested in the struggle did not have in mind the best interests of the railroad and of the communities it served. He then led a series of attempts to impede their operations and to assume control of the railroad. If the importance of the laissez-faire at attitude and of the cir- cumstances of the South during the post-Civil War period are kept in mind, this study of the struggle for the control of the Florida Central Railroad may be appreciated as being repre- sentative, in many ways, of the emergence of the economy of the South, and, especially, of the Florida economy, from the chaotic conditions which accompanied the era of Reconstruction. This conclusion seems particularly true in view of the fact that the personal papers of Captain L’Engle played such an important part in its preparation. L’Engle’s reactions to the post-Civil War Florida scene may be defended as being typical of reactions experienced by many other Southerners.