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.

An 1827 visit to Jackson County, Florida

Shangri-La Spring near Blue Spring was likely visited by
       Rt. Rev. Michael Portier as he traveled across Florida in 1827.

The following account of an 1827 visit to Jackson County by Rt. Rev. Michael Portier, the Catholic Bishop of Florida, is one of the most detailed descriptions of the area when it was still a raw frontier.

The City of Marianna had not yet been founded but the Old Spanish Trail, which Portier followed, could still be traced from Orange Hill on the border with Washington County through Jackson County by way of Blue Springs (Jackson Blue Spring) to the banks of the Apalachicola River near Sneads.

The following is excerpted from The History Of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years:

Pushing on the next morning, Bishop Portier soon crossed the border into modern Jackson County. His passage through the magnificent forests that then grew in the region prompted him to wax philosophic:

Rt. Rev. Michael Portier

On beholding this American counterpart of the Thessalian Tempe, one is almost led to put faith in the glowing pictures of ancient Greece, as described by the poets, and in the extravagant stories that travelers tell of certain Asiatic countries. The trees are constantly in leaf and, despite their close proximity, attain an enormous height, bringing their upper branches together as if to ward off the torrid heat of the sun.

What agreeable sensations fill the soul on drawing near to these imposing forests after journeying through interminable tracts of stunted pine-trees, where the air, expanded by the heat and heavy with odor, sickens the traveler at every step, not to mention the suffering caused by the reflected heat of the glowing-white sandy soil. It is like escaping suddenly…into paradise.[i]

Adding to Bishop Portier’s fascinating descriptions is the fact that he crossed the site of Marianna just before Robert Beveridge and his workers arrived to begin clearing the land. His account provides an interesting view of what the land looked like on the eve of the founding of the city:

…On every side you could hear the rippling of the brooks which here and there blended their waters and developed into streams of deep and regular formation. Rocks were to be met as high as the trees themselves, and bordered around with wild flowers, while sweet-scented shrubbery decked the sides and summits of these pygmy mountains. Natural wells, underground caves, oak trees blasted by lightning or cast by the tempest across our narrow pathway like an artificial bridge – everything was present to enhance the spectacle.[ii]

Crossing the Chipola, the Bishop and his traveling companion pushed on to the still new home of William Robinson to spend the night. Portier noted that they “fared better than we expected there,” but also commented on the “coolness of our reception.”

Robinson had arrived from Georgia a few years earlier and acquired more than 3,100 acres surrounding Blue Spring. He built his house on the hill overlooking the spring, then called Robinson’s Big Spring in his honor. Unlike most of the other early settlers of the county, Robinson was unmarried and remained that way until he died. Legend holds, although the device was not mentioned by Bishop Portier, that he built a unique system using chains and buckets to bring fresh water up to the house from the spring.

Portier was fascinated by Blue Spring:

The stream called Big Spring has cut a channel through the rocks over which it dashes with amazing rapidity. Like a small flood tired of being hampered and held up in its progress, it pours over with mighty force into a bed cut deep into the rock. This bed or vase is oval in shape and possibly a hundred feet wide at its broadest span. So clear is the water that the smallest objects are distinctly seen in it at a depth of thirty or even thirty-five feet; while all around the magnolia, laurel, cypress, and cedar are found in profusion. The wild grape-vine, after pushing its plaint branches to the very tops of these trees, hangs suspended over the stream in festoons. Fish without number find shelter in this retreat; but at the slightest sound of an inquisitive wayfarer they seek speedy refuge in the deeper places.

This beautiful body of water, of a perfect blue color, imparts the same tint to whatever it reflects, and when the sun is in the zenith the reflected images take on all the colors of the rainbow through the prismatic influence of the waters.[iii]

This story will continue below, but first enjoy this video on the history of beautiful Blue Springs Recreational Area:

The damming of the stream to create today’s Merritt’s Mill Pond has greatly chanced the appearance of Blue Spring, but the water retains its unique blue appearance and is spectacularly clear.

Setting out again early the next morning, the Bishop followed a pathway that was “little more than a furrow” until he reached a “dark dense wood and guessed that the river Apalachicola was not far distant.”[iv]

Along this section of his journey, Bishop Portier followed the same old trail that had been in use since the Spanish missionaries first visited the area in 1674. Passing between the modern communities of Grand Ridge and Dellwood and then just north of Sneads, he “struck the Apalachicola at its very source, the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers.”[v]

The greatest adventure of his journey through Jackson County came when he and his companion tried to get across the Apalachicola to the inn on the other side at Chattahoochee Landing:

The view across the Apalachicola River
to River Landing Park at Chattahoochee
is the same observed by Bishop Portier
as he waited for the ferry in 1827.

…Proceeding down the river to the boat-landing, we shouted for the ferrymen residing on the opposite bank. For a while hour we taxed our lungs to the utmost, but without result. Noon arrived, and we gave up all hope of making ourselves heard. To return up the river, a distance of twelve miles, to the next ferry without guide or beaten track, would be to risk being overtaken by the night before reaching the goal….My companion offered to swim across the Apalachicola, capture the boat and come back for me. I did not believe he could accomplish it, in view of the strong current, the great breadth of the river, and the presence of alligators.

But, despite my remonstrances and solicitation, he insisted on his plan, and proceeded to carry it out. I beheld him plunge into the river, cut through it like a fish, and gain a distance of a third of a mile in less than ten minutes. Yet I was ill at ease, I confess, until I saw him safe on the other side. A moment later he reappeared with the boat, steering in my direction. But his strength was not a match for the ponderous force he had to meet; the current carried him further down than he expected, and it was only by hauling upon the branches of the trees overhanging the bank on my side that he finally got back. It had been a wonderful exploit.[vi]

Portier’s account of his journey through Jackson County is remarkable for its descriptiveness, but he felt that he had failed to do justice to the country he had seen. “I am relating what I myself beheld,” he wrote, “I am telling what I personally experienced; and I declare that my descriptions fall short of the actual facts.”[vii]

To learn more about Jackson County, please consider one or all of my books that touch on our wonderful corner of Florida. Be sure to visit www.twoegg.tv for video visits to historic sites throughout the South.

         

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[i] Portier, Michael. "Journal of his Journey from Pensacola to St. Augustine," 1827.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Ibid.