New Video: Civil War in Apalachicola, Florida

Two Egg TV releases new Apalachicola video!

Two Egg TV has a new video on the Civil War in Apalachicola, Florida. It tells the story of events in the beautiful old city from 1861-1865 and takes you on a journey to some of Apalachicola's unique historic sites.

Apalachicola was the third busiest seaport on the Gulf Coast when the war began in 1861. The next four years destroyed its commerce and drove away much of its population, leaving Apalachicola as a "city between the lines."

Now streaming at the Two Egg TV channel on your Roku smart tv or other devices, at https;//youtube.com/twoeggtv or you can watch right here:

If you are interested in learning more about the Civil War from historian and author Dale Cox, please consider these books:

Marianna ravaged by two massive fires in two years!

Devastating fires mark the eve of war.

by Dale Cox

The devastating fires struck the block across Jackson Street
from Courthouse Square in Marianna, Florida.

The two years before the War Between the States (or Civil War) saw two of the greatest fire-related disasters in the history of Marianna, Florida.

The first came on October 28, 1859. Fire exploded from the livery stable and burned stores, offices, homes, and warehouses. One-third of the downtown business district was destroyed. This account appeared in the next day's issue of the Marianna Patriot:

About 4 o’clock p.m. yesterday (28th), fire broke out in the large livery stable owned by Mr. Wm. Nickels, and despite all the efforts to suppress it, it was in ten minutes in full blast, and spread with the fury and violence of a hurricane. It was the most terrific and appalling spectacle we ever beheld. In less than two hours from the first alarm of fire, all of that handsome row of buildings on the west side of the public square was in ashes. It began with the large liver stable and ended with the dwelling house of Mr. J.H. Brett, including the stores of H.C. King, Wm. Powers, D.B. Leslie, Jno. R. Ely & Co., the drug store of Dr. W.H. Hughes, the saddler of Mr. Thomas Wilton, the law offices of Messrs. Milton & Milton, and R.L. Smith, Esq. Loss estimated at $60,000 to $75,000. Insurance only $27,000. [1]

The structures were located in the block across Jefferson Street from the Jackson County Courthouse.

Descendants of Gov. John Milton have long owned the
Milton Insurance Agency which stands on the block where
fire destroyed their ancestor's law offices.

The names included in the article ranked among the most prominent in antebellum Marianna. William Nickels, the owner of the stables where the fire began, was a prominent merchant. His home, which no longer stands, is noted in Marianna legend as the mansion of Samuel Bellamy, husband of the ill-starred "Ghost of Bellamy Bridge."

J.H. Brett was the county constable. H.C. King, William Powers, and D.B. Leslie were prosperous merchants. John R. Ely & Company was owned by John R. Ely (Sr.), who lived in Marianna's beautiful old Ely-Criglar Mansion. Dr. W.H. Hughes was one of several physicians who lived in the city, and Thomas Wilton ran a small factory that produced saddles and leather works.

Gov. John Milton of Florida
(D) Marianna

The "law offices of Messrs. Milton & Milton" were those of Gen. John Milton and his son, William Henry Milton. The senior Milton was elected governor of Florida the next year. His son, William, went on to command Confederate cavalry forces in the 5th Florida Cavalry. Uniquely, he later introduced Armstrong Purdee - Jackson County's first African American attorney - to the practice of law. R.L. Smith, who practiced alongside the Miltons, soon commanded Company B, 15th Confederate Cavalry.

The value of the U.S. dollar has increased by 2,996.07% since 1859. The total loss from the fire in modern terms was between $1,857,643.37 and $2,322,054.22, more than the tax value of the lots and structures in the same block of Jefferson Street today!

The fire came as Marianna was celebrating what many thought would be its crowning achievement. The Western Union Telegraph line being built to connect the city to Tallahassee was just two or three days from reaching Quincy on the day of the inferno. [2]

Rebuilding started almost immediately, but a second major fire hit areas bordering courthouse square less than one year later. The cause this time was definitely arson:

The hand of the incendiary had applied the torch to the new store of Wm. Powers, and it, with the contents, together with the store house of H.O. Bassett and the livery stable of Wm. Nickels, were in ashes. The sufferers are: - Wm. Powers, loss $6,000; insured for $2,500. Henry O. Bassett, loss $3,000; no insurance. Messrs. Parker & King, loss, $7,000; insured for $6,000. W.W. Grace, daguerreotypist, lost all his stock. McClellan & Barnes, loss $500. Wm. Nickels, loss $1,500; insured for $1,000. Aside from this Messrs. Davis &c.; Wilson and Alderman, Moore & Co. suffered considerable damage from the removal of their goods. [3]

The destruction of offices of W.W. Grace, a "daguerreotypist" or photographer, explains why no pre-1860s photographs of Marianna have been found.

County records do not indicate that the arsonist was ever caught.

References:

[1] Marianna Patriot, October 29, 1859.
[2] Quincy Republican, October 29, 1859.
[2] Marianna Patriot, July 14, 1860.

The Christmas Capture of the Steamboat Bloomer

The 1862 Union Raid in Walton, Geneva, Holmes & Washington Counties

by Dale Cox

The Union raid came ashore at Four Mile Landing at today's
Freeport, Florida, on Christmas Day of 1862. 

The paddlewheel steamboat Bloomer was the object of a raid launched by the U.S. Army and Navy during Christmas week 1862.

The 130-ton sternwheel boat was built at New Albany, Indiana, in 1856, but operated on the Choctawhatchee River. She carried cargo and passengers to and from points as far up the river as Geneva, Alabama, providing transportation through Choctawhatchee Bay and Santa Rosa Sound to Pensacola.

Her owner decided not to risk his boat when the War Between the States or Civil War erupted in 1861, opting instead to rope her to the bank one-mile below Geneva.

The Bloomer's presence there soon attracted the attention of Acting Master E.D. Bruner of the U.S. Navy. He commanded the schooner USS Charlotte, which in late 1862 was stationed at East Pass near today's resort city of Destin, Florida.

East Pass near Destin, Florida, as seen on a rainy winter day.
The USS Charlotte was stationed here to prevent Southern
vessels from slipping through the Union blockade.

Bruner was debating how to capture the Bloomer when he was visited by Lt. James H. Stewart of the 91st New York Infantry. The army officer was scouting Choctawhatchee Bay with a small detachment of soldiers:

...He said he was “on a scout,” and remained with me five days, during which time we made a partial arrangement to ascend the Choctawhatchee River in company, he to furnish a detachment of soldiers and I to take the men under my command. On or about the 17th of December Lieutenant Stewart returned to East Pass with a detachment of 25 men and remained at my camp while I went to the Potomac for an extra boat, for transportation, and extra arms, etc. When I returned to the pass I received on board the schooner Charlotte Lieutenant Stewart and his command and proceeded up the bay to La Grange Bayou, 40 miles distant. I sent Master’s Mate Crissey with the Caroline in advance with orders to secure the pilot, which he had accomplished by the time we arrived. [1]

USS Charlotte sailed up to Four Mile Landing at Freeport
to put ashore the raiding party and its cannon.

The Charlotte sailed into LaGrange Bayou near present-day Freeport, Florida, on Christmas Eve of 1862. On the next morning, Christmas Day, the sailors and soldiers went ashore at Four Mile Landing. To support their movement, they also brought a boat howitzer ashore from the ship:

...I found when I arrived at the landing a number of horses and teams secured. I attached my gun to a team, loaded with provisions, and had everything ready by 3 o’clock, at which time we started. We traveled 16 miles before encamping. The next morning (Friday) at 6 o’clock we again started and traveled all day, encamping in the evening 17 miles from Geneva. At 3 o’clock p.m. I ordered a citizen volunteer to take a horse and proceed to ascertain if the route was clear before us, and also if the steamboat was afloat. Lieutenant Stewart and another person volunteered to accompany him. The scout returned in the evening and reported that everything was right and that Lieutenant Stewart had remained. [2]

The raiding party followed a road that led from Freeport up the west side of the Choctawhatchee River to Eucheeanna, then the county seat of Walton County. An unnamed correspondent from Marianna described the movement in a letter to the Montgomery Daily Mail:

Alexander L. McCaskill
State Archives of Florida.

...On Wednesday last they marched from “Four Mile Landing,” on the western boundary of Walton county, to the Court House, where they interfered with nothing; went a few miles further, arrested Hon. Mr. McCaskill, who was a member of our State Convention. [3]

The "Hon. Mr. McCaskill," seized by the raiders, was Alexander L. McCaskill. One of Walton County's delegates to the state secession convention, he was a Unionist farmer who voted against Florida's secession from the Union. His treatment at the hands of the raiders did not sit well with McCaskill,. After returning home, he enlisted in the 6th Alabama Cavalry, eventually rising to the rank of 1st lieutenant.

Lt. Stewart went aboard the idle steamboat, untied it from its moorings and floated it out to the middle of the Choctawhatchee. He and the soldier who accompanied him then added planking to the pilothouse to fortify it against small arms fire.

Acting Master Bruner reached the boat on Saturday morning, December 27, to find that it could be placed in running order within 24-hours. His men immediately went to work:

The raiding party steamed the Bloomer down the Choctawhatchee
River, passing such points as the Cowford (seen here).

...At 8 o’clock a.m. everything was reported ready, but upon getting up steam a hole was found in one of the boilers, and we were obliged to let the steam go down again in order to repair it, which took until 3 o’clock p.m., when everything being ready we started. After running two and a half days in one of the very worst rivers I have ever been in, and expecting to be fired upon at any moment, we returned safely alongside the Charlotte. [4]

The capture of the Bloomer was a remarkable exploit, but its value soon caused tension between the soldiers and sailors who took part in the adventure. The army and the navy both claimed the vessel as a prize, with Lt. Stewart going so far as to accuse Bruner of cowardice during the raid:

...During the march of 41 miles Mr. Bruner was very earnest to return, as citizens said there were several companies of rebel cavalry in the neighborhood, but my officer refused to retreat. At 23 miles from the vessel they were assured that she was sunk, and Mr. Bruner insisted upon a retreat. My officer said he would have a piece of the steamer if he had to dive for it. [5]

Bloomer, mounted cannon on her decks, and put her to use along the coast of Northwest Florida. She later took part in the burning of the village of St. Andrews (now Panama City) on St. Andrew Bay and participated in the destruction of hundreds of saltworks along the Gulf Coast.

The road used by the Union raiding party passed by the crystal
clear spring at today's Ponce de Leon Springs State Park.

A judge ultimately settled the dispute in favor of the U.S. Navy, which purchased the

The steamboat's owner never regained possession of his vessel. She sank at East Pass in June 1865, but was raised by the navy and sold to S.P. Griffin & Company of Woolsey, Florida.* The Griffin firm renamed the boat Emma and used her until 1868 when she was sold to foreign interests. Her eventual fate is unknown.

The Christmas raid of 1862 penetrated more than 50 miles of Confederate territory without the firing of a shot. Modern communities along its route include Freeport, Eucheeanna, Ponce de Leon, Barker Store, and Geneva.

The map below shows the Junction of the Choctawhatchee and Pea Rivers at Geneva, Alabama. The capture site was one mile downstream.

REFERENCES:

[1] Acting Master E.D. Bruner to Commander Alexander Gibson, U.S. Navy, commanding Frigate Potomac, January 3, 1863, ORN.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Montgomery Daily Mail, January 4, 1863.

[4] Brig. Gen. Neal Dow, U.S. Army, to Rear-Admiral David G. Farragut, U.S. Navy, January 2, 1863, ORN.

Floridian vs. Floridian on Hard Labor Creek

Remembering the Battle of Vernon, Florida

Historic marker on the square in Vernon, Florida.

Editor's Note: The Battle of Vernon was a running skirmish fought in Washington County as Union troops returned to Pensacola from the Battle of Marianna, Florida. The encounter was unique in that it was a true "brother against brother" fight. The Confederates involved were from Capt. W.B. Jones' Scouts (Vernon Home Guard), a militia unit raised in Washington County several months earlier. The main Federals actually engaged were primarily from the 1st Florida Cavalry (U.S.), a Union force that included several men from the same county.

The following is excerpted from Dale Cox's book The Battle of Marianna, Florida:

(Excerpt)

Confederate troops were now swarming into Northwest Florida, but it was too late.  The Federals were already well on their way to Washington County before Milton, Jeter, and Chisolm crossed the bridge back into town on the morning of the 28th. Leaving Marianna, they followed the road southwest through present-day Kynesville to Oak and Hickory (Orange) Hills. The plantation of David Porter Everett at Hickory Hill was heavily damaged. The raiders may have been concerned about pursuit by Confederate cavalry, but not so much so that they stopped carrying out the goals of the raid as they advanced. Legend holds that they rested briefly on the grounds of the academy at Hickory Hill (at today’s Orange Hill Methodist Church) before continuing down the hill in the direction of Holmes Valley and Vernon.

A number of the men and boys who fought at the Battle of
Vernon attended Moss Hill United Methodist Church. The
structure is virtually unchanged since the day of the battle.

A courier had gone out along this same route on the morning of the 27th to summon help from Captain W.B. Jones and his scouts at Vernon, then the county seat of Washington County. Jones assembled his company on the morning of the 28th and conscripted every available man and boy in the area, regardless of age.

Exactly how many men he managed to get into the field may never be known. The unit originally included around 30 men, but evidence from pension files indicates that it was expanded when Florida’s home guard was organized in August. A number of men from Walton County later claimed they had been taken to Vernon by Captain J.B. Hutto for service under Captain Jones. In addition, the men were joined on the morning of the 28th by several Confederate regulars home on leave and by a number of other men, many of them over 60 years old, who later indicated they were conscripted into the service that day due to the emergency.

The main fighting of the Battle of Vernon was at
Hard Labor Creek several miles east of town.

The company probably numbered 50 by the time it was ready to leave Vernon, but the actual number could have been somewhat higher. By mid to late morning, they were heading east for Marianna on the same road by which the Union command was marching west. It was a recipe for disaster, and that is exactly what happened:

…Hearing that the Federal soldiers were coming Captain William Jones went to meet them… we suddenly met the Northern soldiers and they demanded that we surrender, fighting opened and a large man by the name of Pierce was killed near me. I was wounded, and was taken home. Captain Jones was captured, and was taken away. [194]

Coming down the hill to Hard Labor Creek just west of today’s Washington Cemetery, Jones and his men ran head-on into the vanguard of Asboth’s column. The Federals were in no mood to be delayed and promptly ordered the home guard to surrender. Whether they declined or had time to do so in the confusion is not known. According to legend, one of Jones’ men verbally taunted the Union soldiers, profanely voicing his opinion of them. The Federals responded by opening fire on the outnumbered Confederates, capturing most of them and scattering the rest. Stephen Pierce, the man who is said to have taunted the Union soldiers, was supposedly dragged away behind a gallberry bush and executed. [195]

Stephen Pierce, a member of Jones'
company allegedly taunted the Union
soldiers in the minutes before his death.

The truth of the incident is difficult to determine. The encounter was officially mentioned only in the activity record of the 1st Florida U.S. Cavalry, but no details were provided in the reports of either side. Samuel Wood Doble of the 2nd Maine Cavalry did not participate in the fight but gave a vague description of it:

Started this morning at seven. The advance guard met and fought a small number of Rebels and took several prisoners. Shot the Captain of the company. He was going to reinforce the Rebels at Marianna, thinking we should stop a day or two at that place. [196]

Doble remembered passing a Confederate soldier who was, in his words, “just dying.” The Federals made no effort to carry him along but instead left him to his fate. This individual may have been Stephen Pierce, who is known to have been killed in the encounter near Vernon, or he may have been some other home guard member whose name has been lost to time.

Pierce’s body was carried to the top of the hill on the east side of the creek and buried at what is now Washington Cemetery. The 1860 Census Records for Washington County show that at the time of the battle, he was a 46-year-old farmer who supported a wife, Jane, and at least six children. He owned no slaves, and his total worth was only $100. Pierce had enlisted in the “Washington County Invincibles” on September 13, 1861. The unit became Company H of the 4th Florida Infantry. Pierce served with his company in the Army of Tennessee, fighting at Shiloh and Stones River. He received a medical discharge in 1863 and returned home to his farm. He enlisted under Captain Jones in August of 1864 when Governor Milton ordered the formation of the Florida home guard. [197]

So far as is known, Pierce was the only man killed in the “Battle” of Vernon. Another man, John J. Wright, was wounded. In an account written many years later for a pension application, he reported receiving two wounds, “I have lost the use of my right arm, never could use it as good after I was shot in the shoulder. I was also hit in the left leg that soon got well and has not bothered me but little.” [198]

Nathaniel Miller, a Seminole Wars veteran, was among the
prisoners captured at the Battle of Vernon. He died at the
Union prison in Elmira, New York.

Outnumbered and completely overwhelmed by the sudden burst of gunfire, the men of Jones’ company broke and ran. The surviving accounts indicate the Federals were hot on their heels:

…On our way to Marianna we met a company of Federals, near Hard Labor Creek, and Jones company was captured and taken to Ship Island Prison. I made my escape on horseback and outran them. I was pursued all the way back to Vernon and shot at many times but escaped without injury. [199]

In either the initial melee or the running fight back to Vernon, Captain Jones and ten of his men were captured. Among these were four Confederate regulars on leave from their regiments: Andrew and James Gable of the 6th Florida Infantry and H.R. and B.A. Walker of the 1st Florida Infantry. Also captured were Enoch Johns, Shadrick Johns, John Nelson, Cary Taylor, Freeman Irwin, and Nathaniel Miller. Irwin had represented Washington County at Florida’s secession convention in 1861 and Taylor was a former Washington County sheriff. 

The story of these prisoners is particularly tragic. Taken away by the raiders, they wound up in the disease-ridden prison camp at Elmira, New York. Cary Taylor and Enoch Johns died there of smallpox less than two months later on December 27, 1864. Shadrick Johns and John Nelson tried to secure their freedom by offering to swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Government, stating that they had been, “conscripted, ordered out by the Governor to resist a raiding party, and had been captured the same day.” Although the men were seriously ill and over 50 years old, their request was denied, and they remained at Elmira until the end of the war. Andrew Gable, one of the regulars captured in Washington County, lost his life to pneumonia on January 1, 1865, Freeman Irwin died from sickness on February 7th and Nathaniel Miller followed on March 13th. [200]

(End of Excerpt)

Editor's Note: Copies of Dale Cox's book - The Battle of Marianna, Florida - are available from the Washington County Historical Society Museum in Chipley, Florida, or in print and Kindle e-book format at Amazon. Just click here for ordering information.

Learn more about the Battle of Marianna in this free mini-documentary from Two Egg TV:

References

[194] Statement of John J. Wright, June 4, 1922, Confederate Pension Application File, Florida State Archives.
[195] E.W. Carswell, Washington: Florida's Twelfth County, 1991.
[196] Samuel Wood Doble, A Civil War Diary.
[197] Ibid.; Washington County Census of 1860; Service Record of Stephen G. Pierce, National Archives.
[198] Wright statement.
[199] Statement of M.L. Lassiter, January 1, 1931, Confederate Pension Application File of JOhn J. Wright, Florida State Archives.
[200] Individual Service Records, National Archives.

Woody Nickels: Youngest Casualty of the Battle of Marianna, Florida

"Good-bye all of you, I'm in for it now."

Woodbury "Woody" Nickels was killed at
the Battle of Marianna, Florida. He was a
15-year old student at Marianna Academy.

Editor's note: The following is excerpted from Dale Cox's critically-acclaimed book, The Battle of Marianna, Florida. It tells the story of Woodbury "Woody" Nickels, a 15-year old schoolboy who fought and died on September 27, 1864.

(Excerpt)

[A] fascinating account of the scene in town was written years later by Mary Beeman, who as a 12-year-old girl had been sent from North Carolina to stay with relatives in Marianna. She and her younger cousin were walking up what is now Wynn Street on their way to school but found the people of the town all greatly alarmed. They stopped at the corner of Wynn and Lafayette to admire the roses on the fence of Mrs. Caroline Hunter’s boarding house before continuing up Lafayette Street into town:

…We were now fairly in town and were soon curious to know what was amiss. Something was wrong as could plainly be seen. Women stood bareheaded talking in groups on the sidewalk or at the gates, with a look of startled expectancy on their faces, all talking so eagerly and all at once as in a chorus, while the little children grabbed tight their mothers’ hands or dress skirts, and gave little terrified glances up and down the street. [96]

Beeman remembered that it seemed as if everyone in town was “mad today.” The schoolboys ran excitedly in the streets as if a holiday had been declared, but the men looked angry, and the women rushed to save what possessions they could:

…Wagons, carts and carriages drive hurriedly up the street, while in many yards carts and wheelbarrows even stand at front doors, being heavily laden as on moving-day. Women would rush to the door with sheets tied up full of something, dump it in the carts and fly off like mad for another load. And the men sat impatiently in the wagons, calling out: “Hello! Hurry up there, unless you want them to come before you get these tricks off.” [97]

The Nickels or Bellamy Mansion no longer
stands. This was the scene of Woody's last
farewell to his family. The house is better
remembered for its connection to Jackson
County's Bellamy Bridge Ghost Story.

It became apparent to the girls that there would be no school that day, so they went to the home of her uncle, William Nickels. A prominent Marianna merchant and innkeeper, Nickels lived in the massive old mansion built years earlier by Samuel Bellamy. They were told there by a cousin that 10,000 Union troops were on their way, which prompted Beeman to remark that they would “swallow
Marianna.” Another relative responded defiantly that they would have to swallow guns and bayonets if they did. “We won’t sit ready greased for the eating,” the female cousin proclaimed. It was as this discussion was underway that Beeman’s 15-year-old cousin, Woodbury “Woody” Nickels, appeared in the central hallway of the house:

“What’s that, little Reb,” called out Woody, as he came bouncing in the hall where we were all at work with toungue and hands; “want me to bring you a dead Yank for that bloody speech after the battle?” “Yes, Lot’s of them” returned I, “if you can. Nothing would please me better.” Well, here goes!” cried he, taking Josie’s gun and cap from behind the door and proceeding to don one and load the other [Note: Josie was Woody’s brother, who had been killed earlier in the war]. “Put in lots of shot,” I called to him. “Aye, that I will. Good-bye, all of you. I’m in for it now.” And he gave me a pinch on one cheek, while he laid a hearty kiss on the other. As he went down the steps he called out to me: “Don’t you wish you were a man?” [98]

Dale Cox, author of The Battle of Marianna, Florida, points
out bullet scars on a grave monument for students of
Thomasville Christian School.

(End of Excerpt)

Woody Nickels died that day. He was among those inside St. Luke's Episcopal Church when it was torched by Union soldiers. Running out through the front door, he was shot through the leg. The wound left him unable to walk, but Woody crawled as far as he could from the fire, wrapping his arms around the Robinson monument in front of the church as his enemies closed in around him.

The body of Woodbury "Woody" Nickels was found in the St. Luke's Churchyard after the battle. His hands still clung to the monument. His head had been crushed by a blow from a musket butt.

Just 15-years old, he was the youngest man killed in the Battle of Marianna.

Editor's Note: Read the full story in Dale Cox's book, The Battle of Marianna, Florida. It is available in Marianna at Bespoken Gifts and Antiques (4430 Lafayette Street) or online from Amazon in print and Kindle e-book formats. Click here for ordering information. 

You can also learn more in this free mini-documentary from Two Egg TV:

References

[96] Mrs. Mary Beeman, “Killed in Cold Blood,” Our Women in the War: The Lives They Lived, The
Deaths They Died, published by the Charleston News and Courier, 1885.

[97] Ibid.

[98] Ibid.

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.

Should 1863 storm be called Hurricane "Chattahoochee"?

Remembering deadly Florida hurricane as Dorian churns offshore

by Dale Cox

Stern of the CSS Chattahoochee at the National
Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia.

Hurricane “Amanda” was a tropical cyclone that slammed into Florida’s Apalachicola Bay on May 27-28, 1863. Researchers Michael Chenoweth and C.J. Mock concluded in a 2013 article that the storm was a rare May hurricane.

They took the name “Amanda” from the Union warship, USS Amanda. A six-gun sailing vessel, she ran aground during the storm and was burned by her own crew on May 27, 1863. For the sailors aboard a Confederate warship on the Apalachicola River, however, the storm could just as easily have been called Hurricane “Chattahoochee.” Their vessel, the CSS Chattahoochee, went down on the same day in Florida’s greatest naval tragedy of the War Between the States or Civil War.

The Chattahoochee, named for the river on which she was built, was a powerful warship that mounted six heavy guns, was more than 110 feet long and carried a crew of more than 100 men. She was built at shipyard developed by plantation-owner David S. Johnston at Saffold in Southwest Georgia. He had never built a ship before and many of his workers and slaves had never even seen one.

CSS Chattahoochee took longer to build than expected due to the scarcity of necessary supplies, a lack of skilled shipbuilders and river floods that swamped the construction site in the floodplain forest of the Chattahoochee River.

Model of the CSS Chattahoochee

The ship was launched at Saffold on January 1, 1863. Her original captain, Lt. Catesby ap R. Jones of the Confederate Navy, was a hero in the South. He had commanded the famed ironclad CSS Virginia (sometimes called the Merrimac) during her famed battle with the USS Monitor. The epic clash at Hampton Roads, Virginia, was the first battle between two ironclads.

The assignment of Jones to command the Chattahoochee is a clear indication of the hopes that the Confederate war effort held for her. He brought with him several of his officers and men from the CSS Virginia, which was scuttled by her crew in the James River during the Peninsula Campaign as Union troops made one of their many attempts to take Richmond.

Lt. Jones supervised the rest of the fitting of the ship and saw her become a full-fledged warship. The decision of the Confederate army to place obstructions in the Apalachicola River at “the Narrows” near present-day Wewahitchka, Florida, however, prevented the Chattahoochee from reaching Apalachicola Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. A disappointed Jones was transferred and command of the vessel was given to Lt. J.J. Guthrie. A number of the men from the CSS Virginia remained aboard.

The ship was tied to the Arsenal wharf at today’s River Landing Park in Chattahoochee, Florida, when news arrived that a Union boat party from the USS Port Royal had entered the lower Apalachicola River. The U.S. sailors had and captured the blockade runner Fashion in Brushy Creek north of today’s Prospect Bluff Historic Sites (Fort Gadsden) and were towing her downriver to the Gulf.

Lt. Guthrie ordered the crew of the Chattahoochee to raise steam. He intended to go down the river and recapture the blockade runner even if it meant he had to blast the army’s obstructions out of his way. The ship left her home port at Chattahoochee on May 26, 1863.

She was forced to stop later that day by shallow water flowing over a sandbar at Blountstown, Florida.

The Apalachicola River as seen from Neal Landing Park at
Blountstown, Florida, scene of the Chattahoochee disaster.

Neither the captain nor his crew knew that a major early-season hurricane was about to blow in from the Gulf of Mexico. A light rain was already falling and the barometric pressure began a sudden drop as the Chattahoochee rocked at anchor in the Apalachicola River. By the time Lt. Guthrie made it back to the ship on the next morning, the storm was whipping up whitecaps on the river. Realizing that it was impossible to catch the Union raiders and concerned over the severity of the storm, he ordered his men to turn the vessel around and take her back upriver and out of danger.

Hurricane conditions likely contributed to what happened next.

The crew was preparing to raise steam for the trip when an argument broke out below decks. A gauge was not working properly, and they could not tell how much water was in the boiler. The chief engineer was sick with a fever. He rose from his bunk to see what was wrong, but before he could intervene, the CSS Chattahoochee was suddenly rocked by a massive explosion!

Shipyard crews later found that the malfunctioning gauge had allowed the boiler to grow red hot before crew members opened the valves to fill it with water. The cool water hit the red hot iron of the boiler and instantly vaporized to high-pressure steam. The steam to burst through piping attached to the boiler and sprayed out in a deadly jet into the engine room of the ship.

Sixteen members of the crew were killed instantly, scalded to death where they stood. Another man was mortally injured, two others were severely scalded, and another four received minor burns.

Site of the CSS Chattahoochee disaster at Blountstown.

Panicked that the gunpowder in the ship’s magazines might explode, other crew members opened the plugs in the ship’s hull and let the proud Confederate warship sink to the bottom of the storm-tossed Apalachicola.

The horrible accident was described by C.S. Navy officers:

…No description, I am told, could possibly be given of the scene on the deck of the Chattahoochee, men running about frantic with pain, leaving the impression of their bleeding feet, and sometimes the entire flesh, the nails and all, remaining behind them. The dead and wounded were taken onshore, where they remained until the next afternoon, most of the time with a terrible storm raging.

The wounded men spent more than 24-hours in miserable and muddy conditions on the riverbank at Blountstown before a paddlewheel steamboat finally reached them. They carried to Ocheesee Bluff where a makeshift hospital was set up at the historic Gregory House, which can be seen today across the river at Torreya State Park. They were tended there by the ship’s surgeon along with the doctors and ladies of Ocheesee. As soon as they could be stabilized, the victims were carried by boat for extended treatment in Columbus, Georgia.

The dead were taken to Chattahoochee where they were buried south of the Apalachicola Arsenal complex. The burial site was forgotten over time, but a 20th-century construction project uncovered the graves. Archaeologists exhumed the bodies. A monument was placed not long after and can be seen today at the original gravesite on the west side of Main Street about 1/2 block south of U.S. 90.

The scene of the deadly explosion can be seen from Neal Landing Park in Blountstown, Florida.

Military and newspaper accounts from 1863 indicate that more than 150 people died in the hurricane, making it one of the 25 deadliest tropical cyclones ever to strike the United States.

To learn more about the CSS Chattahoochee, please enjoy this free documentary from Two Egg TV:

Gunpowder mines in Jackson County, Florida

by Dale Cox

Note: The following is excerpted from The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States.

Caves were a source of niter, a key component of gunpowder,
during the War Between the States or Civil War. Confederates
explored caves like this one in Jackson County to see if they
could be mined for raw materials for powder production.

Like most Floridians, the residents of Jackson County showed little initial interest in the blockade of the state’s coastline by the Union navy. Many did not think a total blockade even possible and few expected the war to last longer than a year or two. By the middle of 1862, however, it was apparent that the blockade would prove to be a factor not just for the South’s residents, but for its armies as well. Plagued with limited manufacturing capabilities when the war began, the Confederacy depended heavily on arms, ammunition, and gunpowder brought in from abroad. As the blockade tightened, these avenues of supply were constricted.


In hopes of breaking the blockade and opening key ports, the Confederate Navy pushed forward projects such as the CSS Chattahoochee. Quickly recognizing that they simply did not have the means to challenge the U.S. Navy for supremacy of the waves, however, Southern leaders also embarked on an ambitious program of industrialization. Peacetime mills, foundries, and manufacturing facilities were converted and expanded to provide war material for the Southern military. Major industrial centers grew in Columbus and Augusta, Georgia; Selma and Mobile, Alabama; Richmond, Virginia, and in other key locations across the Confederate States.

It is difficult to imagine today, but the paddlewheel steamboat
Jackson carried cargoes of cotton and other commodities
down the Chipola River from Marianna throughout the war. 

In many ways, this effort to wage war by the South foreshadowed future methods of manufacturing and supply. A converted riverboat facility in Columbus, for example, provided engines for warship construction projects throughout the Confederacy, while heavy cannon for those same vessels came from ordnance complexes in Richmond and Selma. Ironworks in Alabama and Georgia, in turn, provided the raw material used for making the guns and powder works in cities such as Augusta turned out gunpowder for both cannon and small arms.

Even Jackson County, far from the booming industrial cities of the Confederacy, contributed to this effort. Cotton from the county’s plantations and farms went up the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers to thread and textile mills where it was converted into uniforms, tents, and bandages. Tanneries like the one at Oak Hill west of present-day Alford produced boots in large numbers for the military and other shops, large and small, manufactured everything from barrels and kegs to wagon wheels and horseshoes. The county’s forests provided heavy timbers, milled lumber and even enormous pine masts for naval construction. Beef, pork, and grain from Jackson County supported Southern armies in the field as far away as Virginia, but primarily in Tennessee and Georgia.

Gunpowder, however, was the key to continued resistance to the gathering armies of the North. While an army might move on its stomach, without powder for its muskets and cannons, it could not fight. A key ingredient of gunpowder was potassium nitrate, more commonly known during the 19th center as saltpeter.

Jackson County's caves proved too wet for use in mining
for saltpeter (potassium nitrate).

While there were several ways to collect or manufacture potassium nitrate, perhaps the easiest was to collect it from caves. In its mineral form, it was known as nitre (usually spelled niter today) and was commonly found in clear to whitish encrustations on the walls and ceilings of dry caves. It was formed by nitrates and alkali potassium leaching through the ground. Saltpeter could also be produced from the bat guano that accumulated on the floors of caves.

In an effort to find nitre for powder works such as the massive facility at Augusta, Georgia, the Confederate Nitre Bureau was established and Professor Nathan Pratt of Oglethorpe University was named Superintendent of Nitre for the District of Florida. A noted scientist of his day, Pratt was assigned the formidable task of developing sources for large quantities of nitre. Because the mineral was being successfully extracted from caves elsewhere in the South, his attention quickly turned to caverns that honeycomb much of Florida. Jackson County, of course, is home to hundreds of caves of various sizes.

While most of the many caves in the county were too small to be of much value for industrially producing nitre, it was hoped that several of the larger ones might hold potential. The Natural Bridge or Old Indian Cave at today's Florida Caverns State Park and the Arch Cave three miles northwest of Marianna were the best known of these. The massive tour cave at the state park was not discovered until the 20th century.

To investigate the potential of the caves in Jackson County and elsewhere in Florida, Pratt traveled across much of Florida between May 28 and June 27, 1862. His investigations concentrated on caves near Marianna and Gainesville, as well as on other sources for producing saltpeter in Florida.

Professor Pratt arrived in Marianna on June 8, 1862. After conferring with local military and civic leaders, he hired a buggy and rode north from town on Carter’s Mill Road to inspect the Natural Bridge Cave. He was disappointed with what he found:

…(T)he caves are all small, the largest not over 400 yards long and from 10 to 20 feet wide, with few lateral expansions or apartments. The floors are generally rocky. Earthy floors when found of large extent, generally shallow; these are kept wet by water rushing in at the mouth or by excessive dripping from the porous ceiling above, so that nitre either is not formed or if formed is subject to constant lixiviation. Deficiency of earth or excessive wetness will describe all the caves of Florida that I examined and I consider these a sample of all as they occur in the same “rottru” porous, white limestone, of the Meiocine Tertiarry.

Nitre was a key ingredient needed to manufacture black
powder, which was used in muskets of the Civil War era.

In short, the caves of Jackson County were too wet to be of much use for extracting nitre. While the results of his examinations were discouraging, Pratt did not completely rule out the possibility that small quantities of nitre could be mined in Florida. He found one cave near Gainesville that he thought might produce as much as 1,000 pounds, enough to make a considerable quantity of gunpowder, and he thought it might be worthwhile to at least make the attempt elsewhere. While he did not expect quantities produced to be sufficient to justify the construction of Confederate government mines, he did recommend that private owners open works in the caves to see what results they could achieve.

Such efforts were apparently undertaken in Jackson County. Either during his visit or shortly thereafter, Pratt named Dr. Thaddeus Hentz of Marianna as Assistant Superintendent for West Florida and placed him under the supervision of Charles H. Latrobe of Tallahassee. The brother of Dr. Charles Hentz, who practiced medicine in the county before the war, Thaddeus Hentz was a dentist and a private in Captain Robert Gamble’s Leon Light Artillery Company. He was detached from his normal military duties so he could work in Jackson County for the Nitre Bureau. Latrobe, a native of Baltimore, was the chief engineer of the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad and also a member of Gamble’s company.

The two evidently supervised at least limited attempts to mine nitre in the caves of Jackson County, most likely from the primary one at Natural Bridge. Surviving records show that Hentz approved payment to John L. McFarlin, an Apalachicola grocer, who had hired two wagon and mule teams for 25 days each to haul dirt for the Nitre Bureau in Jackson and Gadsden Counties. Some of this earth was mined from the floors of Jackson County caves, but some also came from beneath tobacco barns, stables and other plantation buildings.

The experiment, however, was short-lived and by mid-1863 significant Nitre Bureau operations in Jackson County had come to an end. Professor Pratt’s assessment of the productivity of the caves proved accurate and the county did not become a major source of potassium nitrate for the Confederate war effort.

(End of Excerpt)

The Jackson County cave experiments ended well before the Battle of Marianna, which took place on September 27, 1864. Learn more about the battle by clicking the play button to enjoy a free mini-documentary from Two Egg TV:

Legend of the Courthouse Cave in Marianna, Florida

Entrance to the Courthouse Cave

by Dale Cox

The legendary Courthouse Cave that runs beneath the City of Marianna is the subject of a very old story that is told in many different forms.

One popular version holds that the Jackson County Courthouse itself could disappear at any minute due to a collapse of the mysterious cavern. They point to cracks visible in the courthouse as evidence that the weight of the structure is pressing down on the ceiling of the cave.

Inside the cave, looking into a natural "forest" of formations

Another version tells of how early explorers could hear courtroom activity from above while deep within the cave.

Many if not most Jackson County residents have heard folklore about the cave. Here is the real story:The Courthouse Cave legend originates from a story that has been told around Marianna since at least the late 1800s. According to that tale, a pair of teenage friends were exploring the cave when their torch went out and they found themselves trapped in total darkness. Unsure of which way to go, they wandered deeper and deeper into the cave.

Passage leading deep under Marianna

Search parties were organized and groups of local men launched a rescue effort that took them deeper into the cave than any of them had ever been. The missing teenagers were found and brought out alive, but the rescuers told a fascinating story. At one point far into the cave they said that they heard sounds echoing down its passages. Thinking these sounds might be coming from the lost teenagers, the rescuers searched for their source. According to the legend, the noises turned out to be the sounds of courtroom activity drifting down through the roof of the cave!

So is the story true?  Well, let's just say that it is one of hundreds of colorful Jackson County stories that result from a bit of exaggeration.

There is in fact a large cavern called the Courthouse Cave that runs deep under part of the City of Marianna, even though it doesn't quite reach all the way to the courthouse and worries of the building tumbling into it have no foundation.

I will be a little circumspect about its actual location, but the cave stretches for hundreds of yards beneath parts of Marianna. Experienced cavers have explored and mapped it, learning in the process that its myriad of passages connect to at least two other named caves.

Inside the Courthouse Cave

While the story of being able to hear courtroom activity deep inside the cave is not true, it does have a rich and important history. Prehistoric American Indian artifacts dating back thousands of years have been found inside the entrance, clear evidence that hunting parties used it as shelter when hunting along the hills on which Marianna was later founded.

On September 27, 1864, the day of the Battle of Marianna, the cave provided shelter and a hiding place for many of the city's women, children and elderly. The Union troops arrived on the west side of Marianna so quickly that many of the town's people did not have time to evacuate. As the men and boys gathered on Courthouse Square to organize for the fight, noncombatants headed for the Courthouse Cave.

View of a connecting passage in Courthouse Cave

The presence of the cave was never discovered by the Union soldiers and many Marianna residents remained safely hidden there with their valuables while the battle took place overhead. They emerged the next day after the Federal troops withdrew only to find that their homes had been ransacked and vandalized. This story is not a legend, but was told by many of those who survived the Battle of Marianna until the day they died.

Another story that may or may not be legend holds that members of the Republican Party hid arms, ammunition and assassins in the cave during the Reconstruction-era violence that swept through Jackson County in 1865-1876. Documentation of this has not been found, but the cavern's proximity to the scenes of some of the most severe violence of that era adds credibility to the tale.

During the Prohibition era (1920-1933), the cave was used as a place to store secret stocks of bootleg liquor. While claims that a speakeasy or illegal bar called the "Bloody Bucket" operated in it may or may not be true, evidence of moonshiner activity has been found in several Jackson County caves.

The stories all combine to make the cave a myseterious and fascinating place.

It is on private property and not open to the public.

Please click play below to enjoy a "behind the scenes" visit to another legendary Jackson County cave:




To learn more about caves and their place in Jackson County's history, please enjoy the books below from author Dale Cox: 

A mystery of murder & missing gold on the Ocheesee Road!

This rare 1849 $20 gold piece is at the National Museum of
American History. Could a treasure of similar coins worth
millions of dollars be hidden south of Grand Ridge, Florida?
National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History

The end of the War Between the States (or Civil War) brought with it a time of hunger and starvation for people of all races in the rural counties of the Florida Panhandle. It was also a time when ruthless outlaws, many of them deserters from either the Union or Confederate army, stalked the roads and byways in search of plunder.

It was a time when anyone thought to possess gold or other valuables could quickly become the victim of a robbery or worse. 

A man named S.D. Thom learned this deadly lesson on the night of September 2-3, 1865, when he set off from Ocheesee Landing in Calhoun County to meet up with a man named Luke Lott:

Thom came ashore at Ocheesee Bluff in Calhoun County,
Florida. He traveled west from here to meet with Luke Lott.

From a private letter, written from Chattahoochee on the 6th, we learn that Mr. S.D. Thom, a well-known citizen of Columbus, was found dead, on Sunday, Sept. 3d, on the road between Luke Lott's house and Gregory's saw-mill, in Jackson county, Fla., about fifteen miles from Ocheesee, with nine buckshot in his body. He was buried on the 4th. - Columbus Daily Enquirer, September 19, 1865.

Thom, as the above excerpt notes, was a prominent businessman in Columbus, Georgia. He had gone down the Chattahoochee River from that city in a small boat and stayed with a friend named A.D. Bull on the night of August 26th:

...[H]e showed a bag which he said contained $800 in gold, and told his host that he was going to see Mr. Luke Lott, whom he knew, and whom he had promised a visit, if he ever came to Florida, to buy bacon. He left the next morning in a bateaux, a negro being with him, for Lott's place. - Columbus Daily Enquirer, September 19, 1865.

Calhoun County as it appeared in 1860
when it still extended all the way to the
Gulf of Mexico. Ocheesee is at the top left.

The mention that Thom had gone to Florida to "buy bacon" means that he was planning to purchase a large supply of pork. He was engaged in business in Columbus and the amount would have been considerable.

Luke Lott, said by the article to have been an acquaintance of the murdered man, was a fascinating - and deadly - character. 

He lived in northern Calhoun County between the Apalachicola and Chipola Rivers, but owned a large plantation that extended well into Jackson County. He had been successful and highly-regarded before and during the war, although there were also rumors that he had murdered one of his slaves. Lott was the captain of the Calhoun County Home Guard unit and military records indicate that he was a friend of Governor John Milton. 

He was a pro-secession "fire eater" - to use the terminology of the day - and became a bitter enemy of the "Carpetbaggers" (Northerners who moved South) and "Scalawags" (Southern political allies of the Carpetbaggers) who controlled Florida during the Reconstruction era. He was, in fact, later accused of becoming an armed assassin.

...The report is that he went to Lott's deposited his money with him, remained a day or two, and was last seen with Lott, going towards Marianna to buy bacon. Report further says that Thom had deposited some $8,000 and $4,000 with Lott, but the writer is confident that he had not exceeding $400. Some friend should examine into the affair. - Columbus Daily Enquirer, September 19, 1865.

The reports of the time do not mention the exact location where Thom's body was found other than to note it was on the road between Luke Lott's home, in Calhoun County, and Gregory's Mill, in Jackson County.

The beautiful old Gregory House at Torreya State Park was
the home of Jason Gregory, the builder of the mill mentioned
in the accounts of S.D. Thom's murder.

Gregory's Mill had been built in around 1850 by Jason Gregory, a well-known resident of Ocheesee, It stood on the headwaters of Carpenter Sink Creek about 1.5 miles west of State Road 69 and about the same distance north of the Calhoun County line. Gregory is primarily remembered today as the builder of the beautiful old Gregory House that once stood at Ocheesee but now can be toured at Torreya State Park.

Lott lived almost due south of the mill in northern Calhoun County, although he had extensive land holdings throughout the area.

Civil law had broken down in the region by the end of the War Between the States, largely due to the capture or killing of so many local authorities during the Battle of Marianna. The U.S. military responded to the reports of the murder and an investigation of sorts followed:

We learn that Mr. LUKE LOTT, a citizen of Calhoun county, well known here, is under arrest in this city charged with the murder of Mr. THOM, of Columbus, Ga. Since his arrest a negro has been taken into custody for the same offence under suspicious circumstances. The case will be tried before a Military Commission. Mr. D.P. Holland is council for the accused. The case of Mr. Lott, we understand, is one of mere suspicion only. - Tallahassee Semi-Weekly Floridian, October 25, 1865.

Jackson County as it appeared in 1888 (more or less!). The murder took
place south of Grand Ridge on the Calhoun County line.

D.P. Holland, who served as Lott's attorney during his trial before the military tribunal in Tallahassee, had been a lieutenant colonel and later a colonel in the Confederate service. His legal expertise proved worthwhile and Lott was acquitted of the charges against him. 

The fate of the African American man also charged with the crime is unknown. It is interesting to speculate whether he might have been the same man who accompanied S.D. Thom on his trip down the Chattahoochee River from Columbus, but this is not known with certainty.

The value of the stolen money is difficult to assess because so many different amounts were given by writers at the time. Gold was worth $30 per ounce in 1865 so a rough estimate, based on the range of values given for Thom's bag of coins, would be $16,738.05 to $503,400 at today's gold price of $1,258.50 per ounce.

This estimate is based strictly on the value of the gold itself and does not consider the value of 19th century gold coins to collectors! A single $20 Double Eagle gold piece from 1865 in excellent condition can be worth thousands of dollars today.

In other words, S.D. Thom's lost bag of gold could be worth millions. 

The money was not recovered at the time of his murder and may still be out there today, buried somewhere near the line that divides Jackson and Calhoun Counties.