Eyewitness remembers capture of U.S. Arsenal at Chattahoochee, Florida

Participant recalls incident after 50 years

by Dale Cox

The Commanding Officer's Quarters of the U.S. Arsenal now
serve as the Administration Building of Florida State Hospital.

The seizure of the U.S. or Apalachicola Arsenal at Chattahoochee was Florida's first hostile act of the War Between the States or Civil War. The incident took place on the morning of January 6, 1861.

An inaccurate account of the act appeared in the Ocala Banner on January 27, 1905, prompting one of the actual participants to recount his own memories in a letter to the newspaper.

While many local residents refer to the gunpowder magazine preserved at the Apalachicola Arsenal Museum as the "arsenal" today, the historic brick structure was a small part of a much larger complex and was actually outside the walls of the central installation. The post as known to the soldiers of 1861 was a complex of brick buildings arranged around a 4-acre parade ground and connected by a sturdy brick wall. Two external magazines - of which today's museum is one - and a sutler's store stood away from the central complex.

The commanding officer's quarters and an adjoining guard room survive and form the Administration Building of today's Florida State Hospital. The open oak tree-shaded square behind the beautiful antebellum buildings was the original parade ground. Other structures lost to time include workshops, an armory, a shot tower, barracks, and storage buildings.

Interior of the gunpowder magazine, now the Apalachicola
Arsenal Museum on the grounds of Florida State Hospital.

Governor Madison S. Perry, recognizing the likelihood that Florida would secede from the Union, ordered the seizure of the arsenal, sending out instructions by telegraph on the evening of January 5, 1861. The task fell to Capt. William Gunn and the Young Guard, a militia company from Quincy, and they compelled the surrender of the facility from its small garrison on the morning of January 6, 1861.

A one-time Quincy resident gave a somewhat fanciful version of the story to the Ocala newspaper as part of a series that detailed his recollections of life in Florida during the 19th-century. Identifying himself only as an "Old Timer," he was too young to serve at the time of the seizure but witnessed the departure of Gunn and his men for Chattahoochee:

     Here, indeed, was the appearance of “red-handed war” and a scene, entirely different from the joyful demonstration of the week before, ensued. 

     Mothers, wives and sisters flocked to the churches and held public prayers and the night is remembered int hat little city as one of lamentations.

     A military company had already been organized, which was composed of the flower, manhood and chivalry of the little community, and this company was placed by orders from the “seat of government” under the command of the brigadier-general.

     All the vehicles of every description in the little city were pressed into service and in that way the first Florida troops marched forth to war!

     The company reached its point of destination just before day and at this supreme moment a “consultation of war” was held. [Ocala Banner, January 27, 1905]

A surviving section of the original arsenal wall can still
be seen near the site of the west gate.

The writer went on to describe the arsenal as a rectangular complex surrounded by a substantial brick wall but incorrectly remembered that four gates - one at the middle of each wall - provided access. The arsenal actually had two entrances, one adjacent to the Commanding Officer's Quarters and Guard Room in the west wall, and one near the barracks at the center of the east wall.

He told of how the company divided into four squads that used rockets to signal each other that they were in position near the gates. Also, he claimed that the complex was garrisoned only by one soldier. He identified the man as "Corporal Carpenter," who was supported only by his young son and a personal servant or slave:

He received the messenger with the flag of truce with soldierly dignity and asked for an "hour in which to take the matter under consideration." During this time, with his little army (son and servant) he placed a big brass cannon at each of the four closed gates and when he opened them in a show of hostile demonstration, things began to look like actual war had begin and some of the attacking force, it was told, had sudden and severe attacks of "ague!" [Ibid.]

The story caught the attention of William S. Wilson of Quincy, a one-time member of the Young Guard. He was among the citizen-soldiers who took the arsenal on the morning of January 6, 1861, and responded to the article with an account of his own:

 

The site of the west gate, where the confrontation took place
on January 6, 1861. The pretty area of trees and grass is the
original parade ground of the arsenal.

   Some one was kind enough to send me a copy of the Ocala Banner of January [27], and I read with much interest the account of the capture of the United States arsenal at Chattahoochee by the “Young Guard” of Quincy, Fla., in which company I was a member.

      According to my recollection, the account is true in the main, but not entirely devoid of error. I do not think the company was divided, but marched up to the gate in a body; and there was no display of sky rockets. No one was frightened, as no danger was anticipated. When we came in front of a large brass cannon with its ugly mouth pointing toward us, Henry Zeigler, one of the company, commonly known as “Dutch,” pretended to be badly scared, but subsequent events during the war proved that fear was not a part of his anatomy.

      According to my recollection the garrison consisted of Ordinance Sergeant Powell and three men, and maybe the sergeant’s son and servant. The man Carpenter may have been one of the men. [Ocala Banner, February 9, 1905]

The memory of a "brass cannon" was somewhat inaccurate in both accounts. An inventory of the arsenal prepared one-month earlier listed its single artillery piece as a 6-pound "iron gun." The "6-pound" description means that it fired iron cannonballs weighing six pounds.

The taking of the Apalachicola Arsenal - named for the Apalachicola River and not the city of Apalachicola - was accomplished without violence and no shots were fired. 

A second incident on the same day resulted in Florida's first gunfire of the war. Union soldiers fired a bloodless volley at a handful of state militiamen on the drawbridge of Fort Barrancas near Pensacola.

The arsenal complex served Florida and the Confederacy for the duration of the war. It later became the state's first penitentiary before taking on a new role as the ancestor of today's Florida State Hospital.