George F. Pearce. Pensacola during the Civil War: A Thorn in the Side of the Confederacy. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000. xii + 286 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8130-1770-9.
Reviewed by Steven G. Noll
Published on H-Florida (July, 2004)
Do we really need another book about the Florida seceded from the Union, joining South Civil War? Considering that each year sees the Carolina and Mississippi. Attention quickly turned publication of at least one hundred new titles on to the question of the disposition of the remaining some aspect of the battle of Gettysburg, we surely federal military installations in the seceded states. can make room for a book that examines the war In Florida, that placed the spotlight squarely on in northwest Florida. George Pearce's volume de‐ Pensacola and its forts. Poorly maintained, inade‐ tails the overlooked Pensacola theater of the war, quately stafed, and designed to prevent attacks and makes a convincing case that operations from the sea and not overland, Pensacola's harbor there were an important (though by no means defenses seemed ripe for a quick Confederate crucial) part of the overall confict. Meticulously takeover. By the time Florida seceded, Union researched and written more for the Civil War forces had abandoned mainland defense positions buf than an academic audience, this book ex‐ and moved to the more defensible Fort Pickens, hibits both the positives and the pitfalls of the Civ‐ located on Santa Rosa Island at the mouth of Pen‐ il War genre. That said, academic historians have sacola Bay. Newly formed Confederate militia much to gain from reading this book. units quickly occupied the navy yard and adja‐ On the eve of Civil War confict, Pensacola cent fortifcations near the city. The stage was was a sleepy Southern town, blessed with a fne now set for military confrontation between an harbor and protected by a series of federal forts. outnumbered federal garrison increasingly re‐ Tied more closely to the Gulf Coast region of Al‐ liant on supplies available only by ship and a abama than to the rest of Florida, Pensacola was growing force of Confederate soldiers determined nonetheless Florida's most populous city in 1860. to remove the Union impediment to the use of this With Abraham Lincoln's victory in the 1860 presi‐ important port facility. dential election, it became obvious that a section‐ The Pensacola confrontation was very analo‐ al crisis would quickly occur. On January 10, 1861, gous to the standof in Charleston harbor. The H-Net Reviews frst shots of the Civil War were fred in Charles‐ tightening the noose around Fort Pickens. Mean‐ ton, however, and thousands of tourists now while, federal troops and naval vessels reinforced crowd the parapets of Fort Sumter, while Fort the fort, enlarging existing gun emplacements and Pickens snoozes drowsily in relative obscurity. building new batteries. Larger strategic decisions Pearce is at his best when he explains why dictated that major military operations would not Charleston and not Pensacola witnessed the start take place there. In the summer of 1861, both op‐ of the Civil War. He credits Florida Senator posing forces were reduced in size as troops were Stephen Mallory (a Pensacola native and future moved to more pressing locations, particularly Confederate Secretary of the Navy) with broker‐ the Virginia theater. For the remainder of 1861, ing and helping to keep a tenuous truce between both sides engaged in a series of small battles, federal troops and Confederates during the frst with Confederates probing the outer defenses of months of 1861. As it became clear with Lincoln's Fort Pickens, and Union bombardments in retalia‐ inauguration that compromise was not possible, tion. While no changes occurred regarding the Northern reinforcements reached Fort Pickens as Union presence, these battles saw the frst fatal the guns boomed in Charleston harbor. Pearce re‐ casualties of the war on Florida soil. With Union counts in detail the confusing eforts of both sides victories in western Tennessee in the spring of to simultaneously avoid confict in Pensacola 1862 and Admiral Farragut's capture of New Or‐ while reinforcing their military presence there leans, pressing needs demanded the removal of for the inevitable battle. He concludes that "if Sec‐ Confederate troops from the Pensacola region. On retary Welles's message to Captain Adams [con‐ May 12, 1962, Union troops from Fort Pickens took cerning the landing of Union troops at Fort Pick‐ control of Pensacola. ens] had arrived in Pensacola thirty-six hours ear‐ Union troops stayed in control of the city for lier, the war would have likely commenced at Fort the remainder of the war, even though troops Pickens" (p. 67). Federal troops remained at the were evacuated to surrounding forts in March fort as the situation reverted to a stalemate, with 1863. Sporadic raids and skirmishes took place in Confederate troops not strong enough to risk an the vicinity of Pensacola, but no major battles oc‐ attack on the fort and Union naval vessels protect‐ curred. Union soldiers periodically marched into ing it. Certainly Pensacola lost its claim to ffteen the surrounding countryside, destroying and con‐ minutes of fame with the opening salvos at Fort fscating "agricultural products and farm animals, Sumter. Yet Pearce cogently reminds the reader timber and lumber, and household furnishings" that it did not revert to the inconsequential back‐ (p. 237). Pensacola became an important port city water most historians have placed it in. It re‐ for ships of the Northern blockade squadrons, as mained a symbol of federal presence in the South, its harbor and navy yard provided docking, coal‐ "a conspicuous federal stronghold." More impor‐ ing, and reftting stations for Union vessels. tantly, Fort Pickens prevented the use of Pensaco‐ Though few battles occurred in the region, Pearce la harbor as a signifcant port for blockade run‐ concludes that the strong Union presence there ners, a major loss for the Southern cause since was a factor in the overall Northern victory. In or‐ "the channel there is far more accessible, deep, der to block Union incursions from the Pensacola and protected than those of New Orleans or Mo‐ enclave, "a fairly large troop concentration that bile" (p. 67). could have been used in other places in the Con‐ With the beginning of overt hostilities, both federacy to better advantage had to be main‐ sides rushed reinforcements to the Pensacola re‐ tained in the Pensacola military district" (p. 237). gion. By mid-April 1861, close to 5,000 Confeder‐ Part of the plan to stretch the Confederacy thin ate soldiers were stationed in the area and slowly and force it to allocate scarce resources over a
2 H-Net Reviews wide geographic area, the Union occupation of with one whose duty it would be tomorrow to slay Pensacola was a successful, yet unappreciated, his sons" (quoted, p. 170). piece of the larger Union strategy. Pearce does a good job examining the quotidi‐ While Pearce has written the defnitive book an lives of soldiers and civilians in the Pensacola on this theater of Civil War operations, its real area but he says little about the issue of race and success and shortcoming lie in its discussion of the plight of Pensacola's black residents. Obvious‐ the social aspects of the confict. No one (not even ly, the lack of written primary materials relating Pearce, and to his credit he does not even try) can to this subject makes a thorough examination of say Pensacola was crucial to the outcome of the the plight of black Pensacolans difcult, but Civil War. Therefore, the military and strategic as‐ Pearce needs to do more digging to examine how pects of war in Pensacola appeal mainly to anti‐ the war and notions of freedom afected the near‐ quarians and Civil War bufs. But Pearce is con‐ ly 40 percent of Pensacolans who happened to be cerned with more than battlefeld tactics. Using a black. Pearce also gets bogged down at times in wide array of diaries, letters, and newspapers, he military minutiae, with too much detail regarding makes the daily lives of soldiers and civilians regiments, weaponry, and military protocol. come alive. The reader is reminded of the frontier There are other nagging problems as well, most nature of northwest Florida and the primitive regarding the book's presentation. Maps, so im‐ conditions under which troops had to operate. portant in the telling of military history, are not Poor food, unsanitary camp facilities, and the listed by page number. A map of Union operations ever-present mosquitoes made sickness a con‐ in the spring of 1865 is placed in a chapter dealing stant companion to soldiers of both sides. Pearce with military events taking place two years earli‐ is especially good at telling the stories of soldiers er. In spite of those small concerns, George Pearce in the 6th New York and the 15th Maine, Northern has written a fne book that will probably not get regiments far from home stuck in a dead end the audience it deserves. Civil War enthusiasts backwater with little but guard duty to keep them will surely forsake it for another book on Grant's occupied. While Northern regiments chafed un‐ campaign in Virginia. Academic historians may der the primitive conditions and constant bore‐ see it as just another local history, with little dom, residents of Pensacola and its surrounding wider implications. Pearce, however, makes the areas had to adjust to living under Northern occu‐ case that this is an important story. After all, the pation. While Union control was hardly draconi‐ Civil War started in Pensacola (almost). an, Southern sympathizers who stayed behind in Pensacola under the the rule of the hated Yankees and refused to take an oath of allegiance to the United States were either imprisoned for short pe‐ riods or forced to "immediately go to Confederate territory" (p. 172). While civility remained the norm in the contact between Northern troops and Pensacola residents, most on both sides recog‐ nized the tenuous nature of this relationship. An 1862 quote from a Northern major in the forces occupying Pensacola expressed cogently those feelings. "The secessionists hate us," he stated, " ... it would hardly be honest to cultivate intimacy
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Citation: Steven G. Noll. Review of Pearce, George F. Pensacola during the Civil War: A Thorn in the Side of the Confederacy. H-Florida, H-Net Reviews. July, 2004.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9583
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