Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 42, Issue 4
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Florida Historical Quarterly Volume 42 Number 4 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 42, Article 1 Number 4 1963 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 42, Issue 4 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 (1963) "Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 42, Issue 4," Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 42 : No. 4 , Article 1. Available at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol42/iss4/1 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 42, Issue 4 A PRIL 1964 Published by THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Published by STARS, 1963 1 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 42 [1963], No. 4, Art. 1 THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF FLORIDA, 1856 THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, successor, 1902 THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, incorporated, 1905 by GEORGE R. FAIRBANKS, FRANCIS P. FLEMING, GEORGE W. WILSON, CHARLES M. COOPER, JAMES P. TALIAFERRO, V. W. SHIELDS, WILLIAM A. BLOUNT, GEORGE P. RANEY. OFFICERS FRANK B. SESSA, president JAMES R. KNOTT, 1st vice president LUCIUS S. RUDER, 2nd vice president THELMA PETERS, recording secretary MARGARET CHAPMAN, executive secretary DIRECTORS ADAM G. ADAMS ERNEST JERNIGAN CHARLES W. ARNADE JAMES H. LIPSCOMB, III MRS. JOHN T. BILLS REMBERT W. PATRICK E. M. COVINGTON WESLEY STOUT MRS. RALPH DAVIS JUSTIN WEDDELL WILLIAM M. GOZA BEN C. WILLIS WALTER R. HELLIER MRS. JOHN R. DUBOIS GILBERT L. LYCAN, ex-officio HERBERT J. DOHERTY, JR., ex-officio (and the officers) (All correspondence relating to Society business, memberships, and Quarterly subscriptions should be addressed to Miss Margaret Chapman University of South Florida Library, Tampa, Florida. Articles for publi- cation, books for review, and editorial correspondence should be addressed to the Quarterly, Box 14045, University Station, Gainesville, Florida.) * * * To explore the field of Florida history, to seek and gather up the ancient chronicles in which its annals are contained, to retain the legendary lore which may yet throw light upon de past, to trace its monuments and remains, to elucidate what has been written to disprove the false and support the true, to do justice to the men who have figured in the olden time, to keep and preserve all that is known in trust for those who are to come after us, to increase and extend the knowledge of our history, and to teach our children that first essential knowledge, the history of our State, are objects well worthy of our best efforts. To accomplish these ends, we have organized the Historical Society of Florida. GEORGE R. FAIRBANKS Saint Augustine, April, 1857. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol42/iss4/1 2 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 42, Issue 4 THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY VOLUME XLII APRIL, 1964 NUMBER 4 CONTENTS MEMOIR OF A WEST POINTER IN SAINT AUGUSTINE: 1824-1826 ............. Cecil D. Eby, Jr., Doris C. Wiles, and Eugenia B. Arana ..... 307 FRAUD AND INTIMIDATION IN THE FLORIDA ELECTION OF 1876 ................................... Jerrell H. Shofner . 321 MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE ST. JOHNS, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1862 (PART II) THE FEDERALS CAPTURE ST. J OHNS B LUFF .............................. Edwin C. Bearss ...... 331 WAKULLA SPRING: ITS SETTING AND LITERARY VISITORS . Lou Rich...... 351 JONATHAN C. GIBBS: FLORIDA'S ONLY NEGRO CABINET MEMBER . Joe M. Richardson ..... 363 B OOK REVIEWS. 369 DIRECTORS' MEETING, D ECEMBER 7, 1963 . 398 N EWS AND NOTES ...................................................................... 403 C ONTRIBUTORS....................................................................................... 412 COPYRIGHT 1964 by the Florida Historical Society. Reentered as second class matter July 2, 1956, at the post office at Jacksonville, Florida, under the Act of August 24, 1912. O FFICE OF P UBLICATION , C ONVENTION P RESS , J ACKSONVILLE , F LORIDA i Published by STARS, 1963 3 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 42 [1963], No. 4, Art. 1 BOOK REVIEWS Johns, Florida During the Civil War, by Dorothy Dodd .................................................................. ............. 369 Shepard, Lore of the Wreckers, by E. Ashby Hammond ...... 370 Powell, I Take This Land, by Wyatt Blassingame ......................... 372 Ninety Years of Service 1873-1963: The Story of St. Luke’s Hospital, Jacksonville, Florida, by Sidney Stillman ................................................................... .......... 373 Kammerer, Farris DeGrove, Clubok, The Urban Political Community: Profiles in Town Politics, by James W. Prothro ......................................... ........................... 375 Davis (ed.), William Fitzhugh and his Chesapeake World, 1676-1701: The Fitzhugh Letters and Other Documents, by Rembert W. Patrick .......................................... 377 Brown, The South Carolina Regulators, by North Callahan ........................................................ ... 378 Hemphill (ed.), The Papers of John C. Calhoun, Vol. 2 by Thomas P. Govan ........................................................................... 379 Rogers, Ante-Bellum Thomas County, 1825-1861, by Charlton W. Tebeau ...................................................... .............. 380 Taylor, Negro Slavery in Louisiana, by William E. Highsmith ................................................... 381 MacBride, Civil War Ironclads: The Dawn of Naval Armor, by William M. Robinson, Jr. ............................. 382 Nevins (ed.), A Diary of Battle: The Personal Journals of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, 1861-1865, by Hal Bridges ............................................................. ......................... 384 Tilley (ed.), Federals on the Frontier: The Diary of Ben- jamin F. McIntyre, 1862-1864, by Allen J. Going ......... 385 Catton, Two Roads to Sumter, by Franklin A. Doty ..... ........ 387 McMillan, The Alabama Confederate Reader, by Adam G. Adams ............................................................... 389 Dufour, Nine Men In Gray, by E. Merton Coulter .............. 390 Norris, We Dissent, by Charles S. McCoy .............................. 392 Carstensen (ed.), The Public Lands: Studies in History of the Public Domain, by James C. Bonner ........................ 394 Woodward, The Cherokees, by Edwin C. McReynolds ............ 395 ii https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol42/iss4/1 4 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 42, Issue 4 MEMOIR OF A WEST POINTER IN SAINT AUGUSTINE: 1824-1826 * Edited by CECIL D. EBY, JR. Annotated by DORIS C. WILES AND EUGENIA B. ARANA N M AY , 1824, S ECOND L IEUTENANT Alfred Beckley of the I Fourth Artillery, United States Army, reported for duty at Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida, where he remained until April, 1826. He was green and untried - a twenty-two year old West Pointer who had graduated ninth in the Class of 1823- and except for his aversion to “French brandy” and “Old Sledge,” he was perhaps a typical example of the officer-gentleman that was the backbone of the peacetime army of that time. Born in Washington City in 1802, Beckley could recall as guests in his home such dignitaries as Joel Barlow, George Clinton, and Thom- as Jefferson, all of them political friends of his father, John James Beckley, one of the founders of the Jeffersonian Republican [Democratic] party. Young Beckley grew up in Philadelphia and Kentucky, where his mother moved after her husbands death in the early 1800’s. He attended the Kentucky Seminary in Frankfort until about the year 1819, when William Henry Harrison took an interest in him and urged President Monroe to appoint the boy to West Point. Harrison even went so far as to “adopt” Beckley for six months in order to permit him to make use of the Harrison family’s tutor. In August, 1819, Alfred Beckley found himself en route to West Point, General Harrison having paid the transportation costs from his own pocket. Following his graduation from West Point, Beckley served briefly on ordnance duty, but his first really important assignment was that of Fort Marion. Fortunately he left an account of his two years at this post, in the form of an incomplete autobiography written many years later, in 1886. Although he had to look back some sixty years, we are nevertheless astonished at his general accuracy, even in the matter of remembering names. There is no doubt that St. Augustine was the brightest spot in his military career, as he himself freely admitted. The climate, the color, [ 307 ] Published by STARS, 1963 5 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 42 [1963], No. 4, Art. 1 308 FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY and above all, the people were in striking contrast with the harsh bastions of the upper Hudson and the rough forest of frontier Kentucky. It was, at times, like “the land of flowers, in the midst of an apparent earthly paradise.” The subsequent activities of Lieutenant Beckley are readily traceable. He served at Fort Monroe, at Allegheny Arsenal (near Pittsburgh), and at Fort Hamilton until his resignation from the Army in 1836. He had, in the meantime, married Amelia Nev- ille Craig of Pittsburgh, and in 1838 moved to the wilderness of mountainous Fayette County, Virginia, to occupy lands granted by the Commonwealth of Virginia to his father. That same year