Marianna's Union Monument

Learn the story of the little known monument to the Union soldiers killed in the Battle of Marianna, Florida.

#99 Riverside Cemetery (100 Great Things about Jackson County, Florida)

Riverside Cemetery in Marianna, Florida

This is the second post in a series on "100 Great Things about Jackson County, Florida."  Click here to see all of the posts as they come online.

#99 on our list of great things about Jackson County, Florida, is historic Riverside Cemetery. You may not think of a cemetery as a "great place," but this one is special.

Part of the original plan of the City of Marianna, Riverside Cemetery was laid out by Robert and Anna Beveridge when they surveyed the future community in 1827. The two developers moved down to Florida from Baltimore, Maryland, where Mr. Beveridge had been a successful merchant. Wealthy and with strong political connections, they selected the modern site of Marianna and were its original owners and promoters.

Grave of Arthur Lewis
Killed in the Battle of Marianna

All planned communities needed space for a cemetery, so the Beveridges designated a hilltop just to the southeast of their planned town for that purpose. With the fevers and illnesses that then routinely swept over Florida and the Gulf Coast, the burial ground quickly came into use.

Sadly, one of the first people buried there was Mrs. Beveridge herself. Only 24 years old but already the mother of three children, she came down with the fever and died on March 24, 1830. She was buried in Riverside Cemetery, likely in one of the brick crypts still seen there today, but the exact location of her grave has been lost to time.

The old section of the cemetery includes some of the most ancient oak trees in Marianna and is nestled on a hilltop surrounded by nearly 190 years of graves. The former slave section is just downhill from the historic crypts and markers. The wooden markers that once designated the burial places of African Americans who lived and died either as slaves or in Marianna's small antebellum community of free blacks have long since rotted away, but the indentations in the ground that mark their graves can still be seen.

The burial trenches where Confederate soldiers who died at the Marianna Post Hospital in 1863-1865 are marked by small headstones. Nearby rest several of the local citizens who died in the Battle of Marianna.

Monument to Lt. Isaac Adams, 2nd Maine Cavalry

Separated from both the old slave plot and the area of oldest graves is a single monument to Lt. Isaac Adams of the 2nd Maine Cavalry. A Union soldier, he was mortally wounded in the Battle of Marianna. He no longer rests at Riverside, but his monument remains.  Adams and the other Union dead were exhumed during the late 1800s and their remains taken to Barrancas National Cemetery near Pensacola.

His grave, however, played a key role in the Reconstruction era confrontations that rocked Jackson County. Several young girls - relatives of men and boys killed in the Battle of Marianna - removed the flowers from Lt. Adams' grave and scattered them in the dirt. They were hauled before a military court, but showed up with backing from almost the entire community. The Carpetbagger officials who ruled Marianna after the War Between the States (or Civil War) backed down in the face of this show of support and released the girls. The incident is remembered today as the "Battle of the Flowers" and was the beginning of the local uprising that eventually drove out the occupying force that controlled Jackson County from 1865-1876.

Riverside Cemetery today is a peaceful and beautiful place. In the spring, when the azaleas and dogwoods bloom, it takes on a surreal charm. A walk through its acres and acres of stones and graves is a walk not just through the history of Marianna and Jackson County, but through the history of Florida, the South and the Nation.

The main entrances to the oldest part of the cemetery are on Franklin Street, two blocks south of Jackson Street, in Marianna.

The Battle of the Flowers (Part Two)

Flowers and Confederate Graves at Riverside Cemetery

To read part one of this article first, please visit The Battle of the Flowers (Part One).

The trouble that took place at Marianna in May of 1867 is remembered today as the Battle of the Flowers. It began when local freedmen held a memorial service at the grave of Lieutenant Isaac Adams of the Second Maine Cavalry.

Lt. Isaac Adams, 2nd Maine Cavalry

Adams had been shot during the Battle of Marianna on September 27, 1864 (Please click here to learn more about the fight: The Battle of Marianna, Florida). An officer in the Union force that attacked Marianna, he had been cared for by local citizens after the raid and then buried in Riverside Cemetery when he finally died from his wounds some time later. His grave, along with those of other Federals killed in the battle, had been placed apart from the sections of the cemetery containing the resting places both of the local white community and the local slave community. Local legend notes that the dead raiders were not considered good enough to be buried either with the whites or blacks of Marianna.

Scene of Heavy Fighting

The raid caused immense hardship for the people of Marianna. The city lost 20% of its male population in a single day. Among the killed, wounded or captured were the circuit judge, county judge, sheriff, constable, county commissioners, lawyers, doctors, dentist, blacksmith, wheelwright, merchants and school boys. Young boys and elderly men were carried away to prison camps in the North and many never returned, having died from pneumonia, tuberculosis and other diseases at Elmira, New York.

The women and children of Marianna were left to fend for themselves. Food ran short and hunger was rampant. Two homes, a church and the town's pharmacy were burned to the ground. The Union raiders carried away all the livestock and food they could get their hands on.

In short, the Battle of Marianna caused enormous suffering in the city and the people were left extremely bitter over the treatment they had received.

J.H. Brett, Killed in the Battle of Marianna

In the Spring of 1866, the Confederate widows and daughters of Florida joined their counterparts in Georgia in declaring April 26th as Confederate Memorial Day. Flowers were placed on the graves of fallen soldiers and other expressions of remembrance were given.

The day of memory was repeated on April 26, 1867, with the ladies of Marianna wearing their mourning attire and placing flowers on the graves of the Southern dead at Riverside and St. Luke's.

Grave of Lt. Isaac Adams

A few days later, a group of former slaves placed flowers on the grave of Lieutenant Adams at Riverside Cemetery. The move probably was done with no ill intentions, but was received by many of the white residents of Marianna like a slap in the face. It did not take long before three young girls removed the flowers from Adams' grave and trampled them in the dirt pathway.

Although one recent writer describes them as "some young white women," all three of the girls were under the age of 16. One had lost a brother in the Battle of Marianna and another had seen a close friend shot down in front of her home. Right or wrong, they were insulted by the sight of the flowers on Adams' grave and removed them.

The action was not illegal, of course, and did not involve any desecration of the grave itself, but it quickly drew the attention of Bureau agent Charles M. Hamilton. He had suggested that the freed people place flowers on the lieutenant's grave and was outraged that three local girls had seen fit to remove them. It was the first real test of his almost unlimited power over the people of Jackson County.

Charles M. Hamilton

Unwilling to let the challenge go unanswered, Hamilton ordered the teenagers to appear before him to "answer the charge of having desecrated the graves of Union soldiers." They did so, but they did not go alone.

Instead of holding a military trial for three trembling young girls, Hamilton suddenly found himself faced not only by the girls, but by their attorney and a group of family members and supporters from the community. The Marianna Courier described the confrontation:

...An investigation was had, in which no reliable evidence was introduced to support the charge, and the young ladies were immediately released from arrest. We would advise our young ladies for the present, at least, to keep out of the way of these "Union soldiers" dead or alive. As there are no headboards, stones, or cenotaphs in the cemetery to guide your steps, it would be better not to go at all, for fear of treading unawares where you hadn't ought to, to spread flowers, or pick one up to decorate, for it might be called another name and you be punished. - Marianna Courier, May 30, 1867.

 
The people of Marianna reasonably believed that Hamilton would have punished the girls had their family and friends not turned out in force to support them. They also considered the agent's attempt to try three teenagers before a military court to be egregious abuse of power and reacted accordingly. News of the incident spread and the "Battle of the Flowers" became the rallying point around which organized resistance of the occupiers began to grow.

Frank Baltzell, the local newspaper editor, had been captured in the Battle of Marianna and had seen his friends Littleton Myrick and Woody Nickels burned at St. Luke's Church. He used the power of his press to heap scorn on Charles M. Hamilton:

"The Sacred Spot"

   If you should at any time desire to walk, or direct your steps towards the cemetery, tell no one of your purpose, and on reaching there look around, and be careful of observation from within and withour, and at all times treat lightly. We have no doubt, on application, Capt. Hamilton would grant permission to plant a tree, shrub or flower, as an ornament to the graves of those you love, especially if not within a respectful distance from the "Sacred Spot."
   Our town authorities should immediately provide another avenue to the burial place of our dead that the "Sacred Spot" be not viewed much less approached, at the peril to the innocent and unsuspecting. - Marianna Courier, May 30, 1867.


In the view of Marianna's former Confederates, the gauntlet had been thrown down by Hamilton and they now prepared to resist him in his further actions. In carrying out a military trial of three teenage girls, the Bureau agent himself ignited opposition in Jackson County. The Reconstruction War had begun.

I will continue to write about the Reconstruction War in Jackson County over coming weeks, so be sure to check back often. To read previous articles on this topic, please visit the main page at http://twoegg.blogspot.com.