The Picnic Shooting at Blue Hole (September 28, 1869)

Blue Hole Spring at Florida Caverns State Park

A shooting near Blue Hole Spring in today's Florida Caverns State Park ignited one of the bloodiest confrontations of the Reconstruction-era. Often called the "picnic shooting," it occurred on September 28, 1869.

Like many such events about which little is known, the Picnic Shooting has grown considerably in the telling. Recent writers have called it a massacre. Others say it was an example of political assassination by a band of "regulators" intent on stamping out justice and fair treatment for black citizens recently freed from slavery.

There are several versions of what happened, but several basic facts are known. Calvin Rogers, an African American and the Reconstruction-era constable of Jackson County, was leading a party of picnic-goers along Carter's Mill Road. The group was on its way to celebrate the Union victory at the Battle of Marianna, a military encounter that allowed more than 600 enslaved men, women, and children to escape to freedom. It was the first and largest mass emancipation of slaves by force of arms in the county's history.

As the party approached the spring, Rogers walked ahead of the group and disappeared around a bend in the road. He suddenly called out that he had been shot at, although no eyewitnesses described hearing gunfire:

...He then called for Wyatt Scurlock, one of his friends, who on his approach to Rogers caught up a child, and he and the child were killed by one shot from some unknown person. Rogers, with the party, returned to Marianna, and with a party of whites and blacks, went in search of the murderer. They could find no clue to the perpetrator of the deed. (Macon Telegraph, 10/15/1869)

Hurricane Michael heavily damaged the area around the 

spring, which remains closed at this time.

The tragic incident could not have come at a worse time for the citizens of Jackson County. The county's federally-appointed sheriff, John W. King, had absconded with a large part of the county's treasury just four days earlier. Rogers was the constable, but he was involved in the shooting which precluded him from conducting an investigation. There was simply no law enforcement in the county to which the people could turn for help.

A coroner's inquest was held in the style of that era and a determination was reached that Scurlock and the child were killed by a shot fired by an unknown person. The posse searched but failed to find any trace of the murderer, with the possible exception of some hoof prints along the road. Both the coroner's jury and the posse included both white and black residents of the community.

The Picnic Shooting was not a massacre, as some modern journalists and writers have claimed, but it was tragic. No one was ever arrested in the case, largely because the governor - who controlled political appointments in the state - could not find a competent sheriff to serve in Jackson County.

Many questions about the incident remain unanswered. Why did Constable Rogers go ahead of the main group? Why did he call for Scurlock by name from an unseen location after claiming that a shot had been fired at him, a shot that no one else in the group heard?  The circumstances were suspicious but any hope of a thorough investigation ended when Marianna exploded with violence over the coming days.

The citizens, once again both black and white, convened a public meeting in the wake of the shooting. A number of Marianna's principal business leaders offered a reward for the apprehension of the person or persons responsible for the crimes. No one ever claimed the reward and Wyatt Scurlock and the child in his arms became statistics of Florida's Reconstruction-era.

The murders sparked demands for retaliation in some circles, based on the assumption that white leaders of the Democratic party had assassinated Scurlock for his role in Republican politics. The suspicions were never proved, but it did not take long for someone to strike back against one of Jackson County's key white leaders. 

Learn more: The Killing of Maggie McClellan: A Reconstruction-era tragedy in Jackson County, Florida

The site of the incident is within the boundaries of today's Florida Caverns State Park. The Blue Hole Spring still flows nearby, but the area around it was heavily damaged by Hurricane Michael on October 10, 2018. Cave tours have resumed at the park, but the Blue Hole remains closed until further repairs can be made.

This video will give you a quick look at Blue Hole Spring as it appears today (post-Hurricane Michael):


This video will take you on a fascinating flashlight tour of the main tour cave at Florida Caverns State Park:

A Congressman and a state senator take hostages in Jackson County

Rep. Charles M. Hamilton
(R) Florida

by Dale Cox

You often hear about members of Congress from one party or the other holding senior citizens hostage. It is usually a rhetorical device employed in debates over Social Security or Medicare, but it actually happened in Jackson County, Florida.

A Member of Congress took an elderly man hostage at Marianna in 1870 and used him as a human shield. In fact, he was even assisted by the U.S. Assessor - or tax man - for Florida!

The incident took place during the heated campaign leading up to the election of 1870. Rep. Charles M. Hamilton, a Republican, represented Florida in Congress and claimed to live in Jackson County although he had not so much as visited the county in over one year.

The same was true of state Sen. William J. Purman, who double-dipped as U.S. Assessor for Florida. He represented Jackson County's district at the State Capitol, although he lived in Tallahassee.

Both men were Carpetbaggers - a term used by white and sometimes black Southerners to refer to Northerners who came South after the Civil War or War Between the States to seek office or establish businesses.

Hamilton and Purman arrived at Marianna in 1866 as the agent and assistant agent of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands - usually called the Freedmen's Bureau or just The Bureau.

Bureau agents did respectable work in many areas, smoothing the way for African Americans as they made the transition from slavery to freedom. They helped the former slaves - who were called Freedmen - negotiate labor contracts, opened schools for black and white children alike, and even distributed rations to starving people of all races in war-ravaged areas.

Sen. William J. Purman

Hamilton and Purman, however, engaged in a series of bitter confrontations with Jackson County residents, exceeded their legal authority by ordering armed gangs to kidnap citizens who defied them and were accused of numerous improprieties by a U.S. Army officer sent to investigate their activities.

Hamilton, in fact, went so far as to urge - in writing - the killing of white citizens by black citizens and the start of a race war of sorts in Jackson County. He was under indictment for kidnapping in the Circuit Court - which was then under the control of the Reconstruction government - when he was named as Florida's sole U.S. Congressman and left the county.

Purman, who took over as Bureau agent in Marianna after Hamilton's departure, was wounded in an assassination attempt and left Jackson County for Tallahassee, where he represented the county in the state legislature even though he no longer lived there. To his credit, he intervened and stopped the race war that Hamilton attempted to ignite.

As the election of 1870 heated up, more Democrats - many of whom were former Confederates - registered to vote and formerly untouchable politicians like Hamilton and Purman faced at least a minimal political threat. So, the two men came back to Jackson County on a campaign swing. As they did, one of Florida's leading African American officials accused them both of being little more than thieves, a sign that their popularity was falling with both races.

Marianna in the late 1800s

The Congressman and state senator conferred with Sheriff Thomas West,  an appointee of Florida's Reconstruction Governor, who called for an armed posse of 500 men to escort them out of the county. There were clear signs that the population did not intend to let Hamilton and Purman leave Jackson County alive and West - who was generally liked by both sides in the growing Reconstruction era bitterness - feared for their lives.

Many citizens, however, feared that the appearance of such an armed irregular posse would lead to the violence it was intended to prevent. A delegation of Marianna's older and more-established citizens went to West, Hamilton, and Purman to try to convince them of the error of the plan:

When the older citizens found such was to be the program, they immediately came to us, and begged, for God’s sake, that we should not call out such a posse, saying that their young men would not stand it; that war would take place right away at once. They said: “Ask any means for your safety, and you shall have it.” Thereupon, we selected ten of the oldest and best citizens as hostages. - Testimony by William J. Purman, November 11, 1871.

Purman later testified about the events before a Select Subcommittee of the U.S. Congress investigating the outbreak of violence in Jackson County. The members were stunned to some degree that a sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives (Hamilton) and a Federal official (Purman) would resort to such drastic measures:

Question. You spoke of some ten or twelve old men going with you as hostages. Do you mean by that they went out to answer with their lives for any assault on you?

Answer. No, sir; I will explain what I mean, Mr. Senator. There were fifteen of us, and ten of them, and had we been attacked, and had it become necessary to go on, spiritually speaking, into the land of Canaan, every one of those men would have gone with us.

Question. You would have murdered those old men?

Answer. We would not have gone alone ; we would have done what it is said Indians have done under certain circumstances. We have heard of Indians, who, when pursued, would interpose the women and children they may have kidnapped between the guns of their enemies and themselves. Had we been pursued in that way, we would have made a bulwark of those hostages.

No censure or other action was taken against Hamilton or Purman for their role in the episode, but fortunately, no violence occurred as the party made its way from Marianna to Tallahassee by way of Bainbridge, Georgia.

At least one modern writer has justified the taking of elderly peacemakers as hostages and using them as human shields by a U.S. Congressman and the equivalent of an IRS agent. In truth, it is difficult to justify such actions in any circumstance.

The violence in Jackson County continued in spells from 1865 to 1876 and occasionally after that. As is often the case, events that were domestic or personal in nature have been included in tabulations of political assassinations created by modern historians, but there can be no disputing that it was a bitter and stressful time.


The use of American citizens as human shields by two Federal authorities in Jackson County worked in that both escaped with their lives. They never faced legal consequences for their roles in the episode.

147 years ago: The murder of Jackson County Clerk of Court John L. Finlayson

Dr. John L. Finlayson, Clerk of Court for Jackson
County, was murdered on February 26, 1869.
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

This week marks the 147th anniversary of the murder of John L. Finlayson, Jackson County's Clerk of Court. State Senator W.J. Purman was wounded in the attack.

The Reconstruction era was at its height in 1869 and Florida was still patrolled by troops of the U.S. Army. Citizens were deprived of their rights under the First and Second Amendments of the Constitution and could even be jailed for such things as carrying a firearm or peacefully assembling.

The people of Jackson County had faced a shocking litany of wrongs in the four years since the war. Rape was legally excused as an "act of war." Kidnapping and false imprisonment were countenanced by Federal officials who then openly defied the local courts after being indicted for their crimes. Teenage girls were dragged before military tribunals.

It has long been assumed that the shootings of John L. Finlayson and W.J. Purman were carried out by assassins attempting to break the power of the Reconstruction government. This is certainly possible but remains unproved. No one was ever arrested for the crime. Purman said at the time that he believed the motive was personal.

The shooting took place on a Friday night:

W.J. Purman, Reconstruction era state senator
from Jackson County, said that the shooting
was not politically motivated.
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

SHOCKING MURDER AND ASSASSINATION – Intelligence reached us last night of a shocking assassination and murder which took place at Marianna, Jackson County, on Friday night last, about 8 o’clock. – The victim was Dr. John L. Finlayson, Clerk of the Circuit Court. It seems that Dr. F. and Maj. W.J. Purman were on their way to some place in the village. Maj. P. walking a little behind, and while crossing a vacant lot were fired on by some person behind a tree at a distance of forty yards, one shot striking Dr. Finlayson in the head and penetrating to the brain and another striking Maj. Purman in the neck. Dr. F. survived about two hours, and Maj. Purman was regarded in a critical condition. The perpetrator of this cowardly and shocking murder is unknown, but if there is justice in Florida it is to be hoped that he will not long escape discovery and punishment. (Tallahassee Floridian, March 2, 1869)

Local tradition holds that the fatal shots were fired from behind an ancient tree that still stands in the yard of the historic Davis-West House in Marianna. The home was then rented to Finlayson and Purman.

The two men were an odd pairing. Purman had served in the Union army and had arrived in Jackson County following the war to assist Charles Hamilton in the operation of the local office of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. Commonly called the Freedman's Bureau, the agency ostensibly worked to help former slaves as they adapted to life as free citizens. 

In Jackson County, however, the bureau was accused of corruption by both local residents and Federal officials. Purman was at the center of many of the allegations.

Confederate Service Record
Card from the file of John
L. Finlayson.

Finlayson, on the other hand, had been born and raised on his parents' farm just west of Marianna. He served in Capt. Richard Smith's Marianna Dragoons (later Company B, 15th Confederate Cavalry) and had returned home from the war to find that Union raiders had looted the farm. His mother, despite her Unionist sympathies, later said that the destruction was done "by the Yankees, at the instigation of the Devil."

His recent history was not enough to deter the young physician from associating himself with Carpetbaggers like Hamilton and Purman. He was described by a newspaper of the time as "one of the leading radicals" of Jackson County. 

...Dr. Finlayson was born in Jackson county, but a liberal education, a generous nature, and a patriotic spirit, made him a Republican. He was, therefore, a “Scalawag.” Senator Purman was born in the North, but had the audacity to settle in Florida. He was therefore, a “Carpet-Bagger.” And who can doubt that if what politicians and writers allow themselves to say of these classes is believed, some will be found bad enough or fanatical enough to endeavor to exterminate them? And who can avoid the fear that others equally fanatical, equally bad, less accustomed to political affairs, should take up the creed of retaliation, and create other innocent victims? (Pensacola Observer, March 19, 1869).

The author of the above commentary was the editor of the pro-Northern Pensacola Observer. He was correct in fearing that "others equally fanatical, equally bad" might try to retaliate. 

Charles Hamilton, onetime Bureau official in Jackson County and now Florida's sole representative in the U.S. House of Representatives, wrote a private letter to friends still in the county to advocate attacks on local whites by former slaves. Purman, to his credit, intervened and stopped such violence before it could be started.

Local citizens gathered in Marianna in the days following the murder to express their general concern. A committee was appointed and the following resolution was unanimously adopted:

The historic Davis-West House from the murder scene. The
fatal shots were traditionally fired from the oak tree on the
left side of the photograph.

WHEREAS, on the night of the 26th of February, 1869, Dr. JOHN L. FINLAYSON was assassinated, and the same act nearly resulted in the assassination of Major W.J. PURMAN, who was badly wounded, and thinking as we do, and as all men of correct views think, that assassination is a most despicable act, which should be discountenanced and frowned down by all honest men, and deeming that it is very meet and proper that our community should express its abhorrence of the act, we do.

Resolve. That the said act of assassination meets our entire detestation and disapproval. We condemn it as we condemn any action of assassination, and we do not think that any portion of our citizens approve said detestable act.

Resolved, That we concur in opinion with Major Purman that the act was not induced by political feeling, but was caused by personal animosity.

Resolved, that it is the duty of civil authorities to be untiring in their efforts to find out and arrest the perpetrators of this atrocious deed.

Resolved, That these resolutions be published in all the newspapers of Florida.

J.L.G. BAKER, President.

C.W. Davis, Secretary. (Tallahassee Floridian, March 9, 1869).

Gov. Harrison Reed of Florida.
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

The assassination of Finlayson and shooting of Purman also echoed loudly in the halls of the State Capitol Building in Tallahassee. Governor Harrison Reed announced on March 9 that the state would offer a $2,000 reward for the capture of the person or persons responsible. The amount was a substantial sum in the lean years that followed the War Between the States (or Civil War).

PROCLAMATION!
$2000 REWARD!
Harrison Reed, Governor of the State of Florida, to all to whom these Presents shall Come – Greeting:

WHEREAS, It has been made known to me that a foul and atrocious murder was committed upon the person of John L. Finlayson, in the town of Marianna, and county of Jackson, in this State, on the night of Friday, the twenty-sixth day of February, A.D. 1869; AND, WHEREAS, At the same time and place, the Hon. W.J. Purman was dangerously wounded by the same individual, to me unknown, and by the discharge of the same weapon which killed said Finlayson:

Now, therefore, I, HARRISON REED, Governor as aforesaid, by the power and authority vested in me, do hereby offer a reward of TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS to any person or persons who may apprehend or give such information as may lead to the apprehension and conviction of the party or parties who committed this foul and desperate murder.

And I hereby enjoy upon all good citizens the duty of aiding, by every means in their power, the exertions of the officers of the law to bring the guilty to punishment.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State to be affixed, at Tallahassee, this fourth day of March, A.D. 1869.
HARRISON REED, Governor.
Attest: - JONATHAN C. GIBBS, Secretary of State.
March 9, ’69. (Tallahassee Floridian, March 9, 1869)

Such efforts failed. No one was ever brought to justice for the shootings. The mystery over the motive for the attack still exists today, especially because Purman said a short time later that he did not believe the purpose was politcal:

Mr. W.J. Purman has had, in this and the adjoining counties, many enemies, growing out of his conduct as Bureau agent, but it was generally believed that all active animosity on that account had by the time he was shot subsided. We are informed and believe that he had numerous enemies in this and adjoining counties on account of his connection with the collecting of U.S. dues to discharged United States soldiers, who believed that he had collected and defrauded them out of large amounts of the same. Whether their suspicions and charges are well based we are not to determine and do not ourselves charge, but may numerate as one of the numerous causes that has created to him enemies. This coupled with his declarations soon after his shooting, when in a critical situation, such as the law writers assign to establish the rule of evidence by dying declarations, and which declarations can be established by at least three very honorable, moderate and entire reliable gentlemen, that he did not believe the shooting was the result of “political animosity,” “but was done by personal enemies,” places the fact beyond a doubt that it did not partake of and was not prompted by political feeling. (Tallahassee Weekly Sentinel, April 27, 1869)

Unless some new information is discovered, the murder of Clerk of Court John L. Finlayson will remain one of the tragic mysteries of Jackson County's past.

Dale Cox
February 28, 2017

Jackson County declares war on "fake news"...in 1872!

Jackson County's Courthouse as it appeared not long
after the end of Reconstruction.

"Fake News" is a favorite national obsession these days. Liberals accuse conservative media outlets of spreading untruthful stories while conservatives say the national media is left-wing and slants the news accordingly.

Inaccuracy in reporting is nothing new. The citizens of Jackson County, in fact, declared war on "fake news" all the way back in 1872.

The issue was the county's murder rate.

Republican members of the State Legislature were alarmed by growing resistance in Jackson County to Reconstruction era rule in Florida. They wanted the U.S. Army to march back into the county to enforce prohibitions against such things as public gatherings and private gun ownership. Florida was still under military rule a full seven years after the War Between the States (or Civil War) and many Constitutional rights had been suspended.

They also believed that the presence of the soldiers would suppress Democrat votes while encouraging the county's Republican voters to turn out in larger numbers. Most of the freedmen or freed slaves in Jackson County were then Republicans, but the party was fracturing and bitter division was developing between the factions.

Marianna during the 1870s.

Jackson County had been the scene of several violent outbreaks during Reconstruction, particularly in the fall of 1869. These had been bloody but relatively short in duration. Hostility was growing in 1872 as property owners felt the weight of increasing taxes. The Republicans in Tallahassee had doubled taxes during their seven years of control.

In addition, graft and fraud was widespread in the Jackson County Courthouse. A trio of public officials - all appointed by the state's governor - had devised a plan to enrich themselves by increasing the assessed values of key properties. Assessments were later found to have been fraudulently increased by as much as 400% on targeted properties. When the owners could not afford to pay these taxes, the land was sold on the courthouse steps and usually wound up in the hands of one of the crooked county officials.

Everyday citizens, white and black, were also being hurt by a dramatic increase in fees. John Q. Dickinson, the former Union officer now serving as appointed Clerk of the Circuit Court, had dramatically increased the amount that citizens had to pay for document stamps, marriage licenses, deed filings and for filing lawsuits. This put the legal system beyond the reach of many county residents because they simply did not have the money to pay the fees.

These tactics led to growing resistance and, as mentioned above, a fracturing of the previously solid Republican voting block of freedmen.

Florida Capitol as it appeared in the 1870s.
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

Several individuals in the state legislature tried to clamp a lid on the situation by having occupation troops sent back to Marianna. They used wild claims of rampant killings and murders to add weight to their demands.

The campaign of "fake news" reached its peak in 1872 when members of the legislature alleged that 184 people had been assassinated or murdered in political violence in Jackson County in a three year time period.

Carpetbagger-allied newspapers like the Tallahassee Sentinel joined in and Jackson County found itself at the vortex of one of Florida's first recorded media frenzies. Lurid headlines spread across the nation and demands grew for the return of federal troops to the county.

There was just one problem. The claims were not true.

The outraged editor of the Marianna Courier went page by page through the county's records to determine the real truth of the matter. The result was a determination that 74 investigated deaths had occurred in Jackson County over a seven year time period, nearly half the number that state legislators claimed had taken place in just three years.

Lest anyone think that local officials suppressed the real numbers, it should be remembered that the Circuit Judge, Clerk of Courts and Sheriff were then all Republican officials appointed by the governor. If anything, they would have tried to inflate the numbers to support their friends in the legislature.

Of the the 74 deaths mentioned in the county records, the Courier dug deeper and found that many were not murders and that others were the result of police shootings and domestic disputes:

• 14 - Killed by accident.
•   9 - Justifiably killed by law enforcement.
•   8 - Killed in the commission of a criminal act.
• 17 - Killed in brawls or fights.
•   3 - Killed by causes unknown.
• 23 - Murdered (including political assassinations).

Another view of the State Capitol in the 1870s. The building
looked like this when legislators launched their "Fake News"
campaign against the people of Jackson County, Florida.
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

The final number for murders was 23. This number did include some political assassinations, but also included a number of murders that had nothing to do with politics. Averaged out over a seven year time period, this came to about 3.3 First Degree Murders per year - including political assassinations.

The total was a bit high, but it is a long way from 3.3 to the 61.3 First Degree Murders per year claimed by the "fake news" reports coming from the state legislature and allied newspapers in 1872.

Put simply, politicians in Tallahassee had accused Jackson County of having a murder rate 18.6 times higher than it really did. The media jumped on board. It was a brutal assault on the reputation of the community and its people and they were quick to fight back:

The people of Jackson County, Florida, of which Marianna is the seat, offer a reward of $50,000 for a substantiation of the charges of Ku-Kluxism made against that county, and a true and correct list of the names of the “one hundred and eight-four “murders, fifteen of the number being “women and children,” which are averred to have been committed in the county. This reward is offered in view of the slanderous report of the legislative committee. - Charleston Daily News, March 21, 1872.

No one ever claimed the reward offered of $50,000 offered by the people of the county for proof that 184 people had been murdered there in 1869-1872. 

The unproved allegations still find their way into books today, fake news from another century that continues to hound a peaceful, rural county to this day.

#74 The Battle of the Flowers (100 Great Things about Jackson County, Florida)

Azaleas in bloom at Riverside Cemetery

The bloodless 1867 confrontation remembered today as the "Battle of the Flowers" is #74 on our list of 100 Great Things about Jackson County, Florida.

Please click here to see the entire list as it is unveiled.

We observe Memorial Day each year as a day of peace in which we honor and remember our nation's fallen soldiers. The custom was started in the South, where the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of fallen Confederate soldiers gathered to maintain and "decorate" the graves of their loved ones with flowers. The families and comrades of Union soldiers soon adopted the practice as well and it eventually became a National Holiday.

In the Spring of 1867, however, this practice of memorializing the fallen ignited a bloodless uprising against oppression. The "Battle of the Flowers" was led by three young girls and became a landmark event in the history of Jackson County.

Col. John T. Sprague, U.S. Army
National Archives

The incident took place against the backdrop of the sudden and brutal suspension of Constitutional rights in the South. For two years after the end of the War Between the States (or Civil War), the people of the South for the most part tried to accept the outcome of the conflict. General Robert E. Lee had urged them to remain good citizens and they tried. Slavery was abolished, new state constitutions were drafted, elections were held and the long, difficult task of recovering from the destruction of war became the focus of Southern people of all races.

The U.S. Congress - forgetting President Lincoln's promise of "malice toward none, with charity for all" - decided in 1867 that the South had not been sufficiently "punished" for its role in the war. Military rule was implemented in the South and in April of that year Colonel John T. Sprague of the U.S. Army declared martial law in Florida.

To enforce its will, the government spread troops throughout the state and by May 1 a detachment of armed soldiers patrolled the streets of Marianna. The U.S. Constitution was suspended and the rights to speak freely, peacefully assemble and hold and bear arms were outlawed.

Grave of Lt. Isaac Adams at Riverside Cemetery

In Jackson County, opposition to this new policy manifested itself at Memorial Day when three young girls engaged in a now illegal protest.

On April 26, 1867, the ladies and girls of Marianna had observed Confederate Memorial Day by wearing their mourning dresses and placing flowers on the graves of Southern dead at Riverside and St. Luke's cemeteries. A few days later, in a move that probably was not intended to provoke controversy, a group of former slaves placed flowers on the grave of Lieutenant Isaac Adams at Riverside Cemetery.

Lt. Isaac Adams
Second Maine Cavalry

Adams, an officer in the 2nd Maine Cavalry, had been killed during the Battle of Marianna on September 27, 1864. The city had lost 20% of its male population that day, with the list of killed, wounded or captured including boys as young as 12 and men as old as 76.

Many Jackson County residents were still extremely bitter about the human losses suffered by the community in that battle, but they had said nothing when the family of Lieutenant Adams erected a stone monument at his grave. In May 1867, however, the community was alive with outrage over the suspension of the Constitutional Rights of former Confederate soldiers and their families. The adults of the community said little - at least in public - but three young girls carried out a brief protest to express their opinion of the U.S. Government and its soldiers.

The girls - one of whom had lost a brother in the Battle of Marianna and another of whom had seen a close friend shot down in front of her home - removed the fading flowers from Lieutenant Adams' grave and trampled them in the pathway. In normal times, such an action would not have been against Federal law and likely would have been upheld as an expression of free speech. 1867, however, was not a normal time.

Charles M. Hamilton
Library of Congress

Charles M. Hamilton, an agent of the U.S. Government's Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees & Abandoned Lands, ordered the three teenagers to appear before him to "answer the charge of having desecrated the graves of Union soldiers." Since agents of the "Bureau" were officers in the U.S. Army, Hamilton's order subjected civilians to a military trial, a clear violation of the United States Constitution.

The three teenagers did appear before Hamilton, but to his surprise they were accompanied by their attorney, their families and a huge crowd of supporters. The Marianna Courier described the results of 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 punished. - Marianna Courier, May 30, 1867.

The people of Marianna believed that Hamilton would have punished the girls had their family and friends not turned out in force. They also considered the agent's attempt to try the three teenagers before a military court to be an egregious abuse of power. The Courier heaped scorn on the agent and suggested that town authorities "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."

The Battle of the Flowers was the final straw for many citizens of Jackson County, Florida. The nonviolent protest by the three girls led former Confederates across the county to end their peaceful cooperation with the U.S. authorities who controlled the county. Over the years that followed, these men would stage a successful rebellion against Hamilton and his cohorts. Much blood would be shed in what would be called the "Reconstruction War" or "Jackson County War," but by the time it ended U.S. troops no longer patrolled the streets of Marianna and control of the local government had been returned to the local people.

Charles M. Hamilton: A Carpetbagger's Disingenuous Defense

Marianna in 1890 (22 years after the McKay Farm raid)

In the last article, I discussed the January 1868 raid on the McKay farm in Jackson County by the forces of Charles M. Hamilton. (Please see The Raid on the McKay Farm).

Hamilton was the Marianna Agent for the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen & Abandoned Lands. Commonly called the Freedmen's Bureau, the agency had been created by the Federal government at the end of the War Between the States to help the former slaves or "freedmen" make the transition from slavery to citizenship.

While in many places and in many cases the Bureau agents were honorable men who did their best to avoid tension between the races and help the freedmen achieve their new status in society, others - like Hamilton - were not. Hamilton had organized an armed band of freedmen to enforce his will on the people of Jackson County, he overruled the local courts in violation of Florida law and the standing orders of the U.S. Army and in January of 1868 he ordered the kidnapping and illegal detention of William McKay and John F.E. McKay.

Charles M. Hamilton

The McKay case led to the filing of two $10,000 lawsuits against Hamilton, accusing him of heading the unlawful detention of the men, during which they were beaten and injured.

Hamilton's attorneys supposedly responded to the allegations on February 25, 1868. I say supposedly because, as will be seen, there is some strangeness surrounding the dating of their pleading.

The remarkable document filed by them with the Circuit Court of Jackson County was discovered when boxes of old county records were found this spring at the old Jackson County Jail in Marianna. In it, Hamilton and his lawyers employed an unlikely and strange defense and asked that the lawsuits be dismissed:

...[B]ecause he says, at the time of the committing of the said supposed trespasses mentioned in plaintiffs said declaration, and long before that time had been and was at the said time an officer in the military service of the United States, and duly commissioned and accredited as such officer by the government of the United States of America, and as such officer as aforesaid, and that the said trespasses in the said declaration mentioned; whereof and for which the said plantiff hath brought his action in that behalf against the said defendant, in the due exercise of his said office under the said authority and power long before the time granted and issued to him, this deft. by the government of the United States aforesaid and unexpired....

1868 Constitution of Florida (Courtesy Florida State Archives)

In short, Hamilton claimed that because he had been an officer in the U.S. Army at the time of the raid, he could not be held accountable for any abuses done to the McKays. To support this position, he also pleaded the Sixth Section of the Fifteenth Article of the Florida Constitution of 1868:

  Section 6. All proceedings, decisions, or actions accomplished by civil or military officers acting under authority of the United States subsequent to the 10th day of January, A. D. 1861, and prior to the final restoration of the State to the government of the United States, are hereby declared valid, and shall not be subject to adjudication in the courts of this State, nor shall any person acting in the capacity of a soldier or officer of the United States, civil or military, be subject to arrest for any act performed by him pursuant to authorized instructions from his superior officers during the period of time above designated.

There were, as might be expected, some real problems with this defense. The first and biggest is that Charles M. Hamilton was NOT an officer in the U.S. Army at the time of the raid on the McKay farm. His service had ended and he had been discharged from the military on January 1, 1868, days BEFORE William and John McKay had been kidnapped, unlawfully detained and brutally beaten.

In other words, Hamilton committed perjury when he falsely claimed he should not be punished because he was acting as a U.S. officer at the time the civil rights of the McKay brothers were violated.

Nor was this the only problem with his defense. The second one involved his use of Article 15, Section 6 of the 1868 Florida Constitution. This document was not adopted until February 25, 1868, nearly two months after the raid on the McKay farm and weeks after the lawsuits against Hamilton were filed. What is especially curious is that the document filed by Hamilton and his attorneys was also dated February 25, 1868, the same day as the adoption of the state constitution.

John L. Finlayson in 1868

The third problem is that Hamilton's defense appears to have been postdated and not actually filed until months after the deadline given him by the court for responding to the lawsuits filed by the McKays. While the document bears a date of February 25, 1868, it was not actually filed with the court until September 8, 1868, five months AFTER the deadline ordered by the court. The date of filing was noted by John L. Finlayson, Clerk of Courts.

A former Confederate surgeon, Finlayson was a scalawag who received appointment to his office. (Note: "Scalawags" were Southerners who allied themselves with Northerners like Hamilton during the Reconstruction era). He was an ally of Hamilton during his reign in Jackson County.

Hamilton's defense leaves little doubt that his attack on the McKays was unlawful. Perhaps even more significantly, however, the manner in which he defended himself and the issues of date surrounding the document show that he and his associates operated with utter contempt for the courts of Jackson County.

Even on its own, the raid on the McKay farm was a horrible event. Unfortunately for the citizens of Jackson County, it was not the only such attack carried out by the Carpetbaggers and their allies during the winter and early spring of 1868. More on that in the next article!

The Attack on Sarah Jane Bryant (July 8, 1866)

The road along which the Bryant girls were walking.
It was dirt at the time. The attack scene is just north of Cottondale.

The event considered by many Jackson County residents to have been the first unprovoked sign of tension between the races during the Reconstruction era was an alleged attack on Sarah Bryant by two freedmen, Henderson and Lewis White. (Note: The family name is spelled Bryan on some documents, Bryant on others).
Although she was described by one recent writer simply as a "white woman," Sarah Jane Bryant in reality was still a young girl. The teenage daughter of a poor laborer named James Bryant, she was one of at least nine children raised by a man credited on the 1860 census with a personal worth of only 75 cents.

These were not wealthy people. They were not politically involved. They had not owned slaves. They worked hard and struggled to survive. There is no indication in the county's records that they were anything other than law abiding people. And in the hard times immediately after the War Between the States, they undoubtedly were suffering far more than they had during the years before the war.

Sarah and her nine year old sister had gone to visit her brother, who lived nearby. It was a Sunday afternoon and the two girls stayed until an hour before dark and then started walking the two miles back their home along the old Campbellton Road. When they were within one-quarter mile of their own house, they saw two black teenagers approaching them. They had never seen them before.

Old tree near the scene of the attack.

In her testimony given in open court on October 31, 1866, Sarah described what happened next. The testimony was written out by hand as the girl spoke:

...It took place a quarter of a mile from home in an old field. They was very close when she first saw them. Prisoner [i.e. Henderson White] first stood and begged, then caught hold of her. They were black and ragged. He exposed part of his person, came in contact. She tried to keep from it. Prisoner didn't do any thing till the other threw her down.

Sarah identified both Henderson and Lewis White in court and pointed out Lewis as the one that had thrown her down. Both, she said, then raped her. Her mother, Margaret, testified that she heard Sarah "crying and moaning before she entered the yard." She also told the jurors that her daughter had been "in delicate health for two years past and sickly."

Word of the attack spread through the community and an immediate search was launched for the assailants. The victim's brother, John H. Bryant, found the suspects at a nearby farm. He tried to question them, but Henderson White refused to say anything. John then went to the Justice of the Peace with his father, who signed an affidavit swearing that his "daughter, 14 years, was caught on the 8th day of this month and ravished and that he has good evidence that Henderson White and Luis White... did commit the offence there."

With a warrant in hand, the two men went back to try to arrest Henderson and Lewis, but the former refused to go with them. According to John's testimony, Henderson told him that, "They had no body to prove he had done the act." They then summoned Captain Alexander R. Godwin, who lived nearby. He had commanded the Campbellton Cavalry, a home guard unit, during the war and was generally regarded as the leading man in the community. Godwin examined Henderson himself and testified against him before the Jackson County Grand Jury a few days later.

Before the grand jury could act and he could be taken into custody, Henderson White was accused of raping another teenage girl.

George S. Hawkins
Defense Attorney for Henderson and Lewis White

The trial of the two teenaged freedmen was held in Marianna on October 31, 1866. They were defended by one of the most prominent attorneys in Florida, former U.S. Congressman George S. Hawkins. Testimony was heard from three prosecution and three defense witnesses and the case then went to the jury.

Henderson White was found guilty of rape and sentenced to hang, but Hawkins had been able to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors with regard to Lewis White and he was acquitted.

The testimony from the case was included in thousands of lost documents from the Reconstruction era recently discovered in Jackson County. It reveals that despite the heinous crime committed against their daughter, the Bryants tried to follow the law and allow the judicial system to function. The suspects were provided with an attorney. In fact, they were provided with the services of one of Florida's most notable attorneys and the testimony reveals that he waged a strong defense on their behalf.

Although they were tried by an all white jury, it is significant that the testimony of the three black witnesses was carefully considered and Lewis White, who like Henderson had been charged with raping a white victim, was acquitted. He was still living in Jackson County years after the trial.

Sentenced to hang, Henderson White was granted a temporary reprieve by Florida's federally-appointed governor. That reprieve expired in March of 1867 and he was executed by hanging in Marianna.

The Bryant family left Jackson County after the trial and moved to to Clarke County, Alabama, where by 1870 James Bryant was farming and still trying to provide for his large family.

The trial itself is especially significant because it was the first time freedmen faced a post-war jury in Jackson County. The trial took place while local residents still had control of the judicial system and the outcome clearly demonstrates that they tried very hard to be fair and that the testimony of black witnesses was heard with the same consideration as that of white witnesses.

Control of the local courts soon would be ripped from the hands of the people of Jackson County and the Federal government would seize control of affairs in Florida and the county with an iron grip. The newly discovered records, however, raise serious questions as to what might have happened and, more importantly, what might have been avoided had Florida's citizens been allowed to continue their peaceful efforts to adapt their society to the new order of things in the years after the Civil War.

I will continue to post on the Reconstruction era in Jackson County soon, so be sure to check back often.

The First Signs of Violence in the Jackson County Reconstruction War

Marianna before 1900

There had been occasional incidents of violence in Jackson County following the 1865 end of the War Between the States, but none really rose to the level of "outbreak." In early 1866, however, things began to change.

The spark, as was noted in my last post, was the arrival of Charles M. Hamilton in the county (see His name that sat on him was Death...). A Union military officer, Hamilton was sent to Marianna as the agent of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, or as it was commonly called, "The Bureau."

Charles M. Hamilton
Library of Congress

Hamilton's decision to vacate all of the labor contracts reached between local farmers and the former slaves or Freedmen living in the county and the mandate that all such agreements be approved by him was in violation of Florida law and created tension in Jackson County. That tension soon led to problems.

On February 22, 1866, for example, James and Eldridge Bates (father and son) became involved in a confrontation with a freed woman named Elizabeth Dozier. The said that she had used abusive language to James Bates' wife and when they told her to leave their property, she refused. This led to a violent confrontation and both men were charged with Assault and Battery.

Jackson County had no courthouse at the time. The most recent one had burned in January of 1865 when fire swept through downtown Marianna, so local stores doubled as offices and courtrooms. In one of these, separate trials were held for the two Bates men.

One of the juries, uniquely, included Samuel Fleishman, a local merchant and Unionist who had left Jackson County during the recent war. He had returned after the conflict ended and resumed his place in the local business community. He later would lose his life in the Jackson County Reconstruction War, but in early 1866 was accepted as just another member of the community and there is no indication of trouble of any kind between him and his neighbors.

After deliberating, the juries in both cases found the men not guilty.

During the confrontation at the Bates farm, a freedman named John Dozier had gone to the assistance of Elizabeth Dozier. Eldridge Bates faced an additional charge of Assault and Battery for attacking him. Based on the testimony of a witness named Bob Blackshear, also a freedman, Eldridge was found guilty and was fined $75, a fairly standard fine in assault and battery cases of the time.

The trial proved several points that have been questioned by some writers. First, it showed that in 1866, when the judicial system was still in the hands of local residents, the freed people of Jackson County could get justice in the courts. The newly discovered records of the Eldridge Bates trial also show that former slaves were accepted as witnesses in court and that their words were given due consideration by local juries.

In the case involving Elizabeth Dozier, a not guilty verdict was returned, but in the case involving John Dozier, the testimony provided by Blackshear was considered conclusive and Eldridge Bates was found guilty.

While the Bates case was making its way through the local courts, a more direct attack on the occupation authorities themselves took place. Jack Myrick and James Finlayson became involved in a physical altercation with a soldier from the 7th U.S. Infantry.

The regiment then maintained a small garrison in Marianna to enforce the edicts of Bureau agent Charles Hamilton and the sight of blue-coated soldiers walking the streets was a difficult one for some of the former Confederates, particularly those who had suffered greatly during the war.

St. Luke's Episcopal Church
This structure replaced the one burned during the Battle of Marianna but
was of similar design and construction.

Jack Myrick (John T. Myrick, Jr.) was one of those who had suffered enormously at the hands of Union soldiers during the war. On September 27, 1864, he had turned out with the local home guard to fight in the Battle of Marianna. Jack, his brother Littleton and their friend Woody Nickels all had taken up stations in St. Luke's Episcopal Church during the battle. When Federal troops set fire to the structure to dislodge the Confederates inside, they tried to come out and surrender.

Of the three, only Jack survived. Littleton Myrick was shot down in the church door and allowed to fall back into the flames and burned to death. Woody made it out, but was shot by a Union soldier. As he tried to crawl away from the intense heat of the burning church, he was killed when a Union soldier bashed in his head with a musket butt. Jack nearly suffered the same fate, but was taken prisoner instead.

Even though he was only 15 years old, he was sent north to spend a brutal winter in the icy hell of the Elmira Prison Camp in Elmira, New York. Elmira was a deadly place and more than half of the Marianna prisoners sent there never came back. Those who did survive had suffered from a winter of disease, cold, malnutrition and abuse.

Jack Myrick came home a year older and a lifetime more embittered. With no prospects for any kind of future, he began to associate with a group of friends, most of whom were of the same age: Billy Coker, Pete Alderman, James Finlayson and others.

Capt. Richard Comba
7th U.S. Infantry

Captain Richard Comba, the officer in charge of the detachment of soldiers at Marianna, took Jack and James into custody following their alleged attack on the soldier from his unit. He wanted both tried before a military tribunal, but higher ranking officers decided instead to let the local courts deal with the two. They remained in the system for some time, but ultimately never were brought to trial.

Other incidents took place as well. The number of assault and battery cases in the county started to grow, a local school teacher was threatened, but the real violence was yet to come.

I will continue to post on Jackson County's Reconstruction War over coming weeks, so be sure to check back often.

Reconstruction #2 - Sanders and his Raiders

Battle of Newton Monument

This is the second part of a continuing series on the Reconstruction War in Jackson County, Florida. To read part one first, please visit:

While the planned attack on Campbellton by Pittman's raiders was turned back, Jackson County's problems with such groups were far from over. In fact, a second such group took up a position in the swamps of Forks of the Creek between Campbellton and the modern town of Malone.

The outlaws were led by Joseph Sanders, a lieutenant in the First Florida Cavalry (U.S.) who had gone out on a minor raid and then failed to return to Pensacola as ordered. Before the end of the war he and his men attempted a raid on Newton in Dale County, Alabama, but were driven off in a bloody repulse remembered today as the Battle of Newton. Sanders by then was facing an arrest order from General Asboth and finally decided to return to headquarters. He was then dismissed from the army for the "good of the service."

Now out of the military, he came back to Jackson County, raised a party of raiders and once again took up a position in the swamps of the Forks of the Creek, from which he raided homes, farms and communities:

…Sanders, it will be recollected, is an old deserter, and commanded a large squad of “Bush-whackers,” and has now a considerable number of thieves, cut-throats and robbers following him, who commit all kinds of depredations. Where are the authorities, that the fiend of hell isn’t taken up and dealt with? No such a consummate scoundrel should longer be allowed to breathe the balmy air of Florida, or “drink of the waters thereof.”

Major Nathan Cutler

The truth was that the people of Jackson County really had no one other than themselves to depend on in dealing with such outlaws. Federal troops did finally reach Marianna in the early summer of 1865, but they were few in number and rarely seemed to have ventured outside of Marianna. Among the commanders of these units was Major Nathan Cutler, the now 21-year-old Harvard educated lawyer who had been seriously wounded at the Battle of Marianna on September 27, 1864. He had remained under medical care at the home of Mayor Thomas M. White for months after his wounding and was generally held in high regard by the people of the community. Cutler, however, could do little more than advise them on what course of action he thought the U.S. Government might take regarding them. Even he did not know for sure.

Cutler did sign off on pardon applications for some of the local men, among them Colonel James F. McClellan, and advised both freedmen and whites to maintain the peace as well as possible. All the local people could do was continue to wait and hope for the best.

 

It was not until June 25, 1865, that the War Department finally began to implement a plan for the military governance of the former Confederate states. Major General J.G. Foster, a well-known pre-war resident of Florida, was named to the command of the state on that day. He was directed to establish his headquarters in Tallahassee.

Marianna in the late 1800s

In Marianna, meanwhile, a meeting convened to discuss what might be done to restore Florida’s allegiance to the Union as quickly as possible. What took place at this meeting and who was involved remains a mystery. So far as is known, no delegates were appointed to meet with Federal authorities on the topic. A newspaper report on the session did not that corn crops were abundant in Jackson County, but that not much cotton was being grown.

It took until August 7^th for General Foster to take up his command in Tallahassee and begin the process of organizing affairs in Florida. He issued orders from the capital city on that date assigning General Asboth to the command of the part of the state that included Jackson County:

…The District of West Florida to be commanded by Brig. Gen. A. Asboth, U.S.V., Headquarters at Barrancas; to include all that part of Florida lying West of the Chattahoochie River, excepting ten (10) miles around Apalachicola. The troops in this District will constitute the 31 Separate Brigade.

It was now becoming clear that military law would be the order of the day, at least for the foreseeable future. For the time being county officials continued to see to their responsibilities as well as they could, but they had no idea whether their actions were legal or, in fact, whether they even still held their posts.

I will continue to post on the Reconstruction War over coming days, so be sure to check back regularly.