A Marianna Resident Meets the Union Navy

By Dale Cox

The following account of Marianna resident Eli Moore’s encounter with the Union navy at St. Andrew Bay was written in 1862 by Miss Sarah Jones (pseudonym of Catherine Cooper Hopley). An English tutor hired to serve on the Sylvania plantation of Governor John Milton near Blue Spring, she witnessed many incidents of life in Jackson County during the Civil War period.

“A resident of Marianna had gone down to St. Andrew’s Bay to fit up temporary salt-works, in order to make enough for his own family use. Such practices were becoming common wherever persons lived in the neighborhood of the coast. Another gentleman contemplated establishing works, large enough to supply one of the midland towns, where he had been offered as much as ninety dollars a barrel!

“Our Marianna adventurer’s salt-works became known to the enemy, parties of whom were in the habit of landing for predatory excursions along the coast. One day a skirmishing party arrived on the shore, and coming up to the place, asked him what he was doing there.

“Mr. [Eli] Moore told them.

“‘How much are you making?’ asked the captain, ‘and for whom? Is it for sale? Is it for the Government? Is any one else making salt about here? Who? How far off? How long have they been making it? How long have you been engaged in this business?’

“All of which questions were replied to by the saltmaker.

“The Federal captain then expressed a wish to see the other works, but Mr. Moore hesitated, and made some excuses about the distance, and so forth.

“‘But I want to see them – I insist on it; or I will order my men to destroy these works of yours immediately,’ said the captain.

“The prudent salt-maker still hesitated, and pleaded the inconvenience of leaving his business; but upon the Federal captain becoming furious, and threatening to shoot him down on the spot, he changed his tone, and said in a sort of confidential manner, ‘Well, to tell the truth, there is a horse company (cavalry) not far from here, and I thought, may be, you’d rather not tumble up against them.’

“The captain suddenly recollected that he had an engagement which compelled his immediate return, and cried out, ‘Turn about, boys! – march!’ to his men; adding to the family salt-maker, ‘Well, well! I have not time to go so far to-day; but mind you do not make any salt for the rebel Government. I do not object to your making a little for yourself, but you must be quick about it; we shall not permit you to be here long.’

“By this pardonable ruse, Mr. Moore saved not only his own, but his neighbour’s salt-works, both of them making the most of the time their federal masters allowed to their sovereign subjects.”

Note: This and other accounts of life in Jackson County during the Civil War years are among the stories found in the new book, The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States. The book is available at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna or online by clicking the ad at left.

Chipola River could once block traffic for weeks!

The rains and high water we have seen this winter reminds me of stories I have heard and read from the early history of Jackson County, when rivers and creeks were much great barriers to travel than they are today.

The Spanish, for example, visited the county in 1674-1675, 1677 and 1693. They usually followed the real "old Spanish trail," a footpath that led from the Apalachicola River near today's Sneads northwest across the county along a line that took it just north of Grand Ridge to Blue Spring and on to the Natural Bridge of the Chipola River at Florida Caverns State Park.

Most of their surviving accounts describe few problems in their travels, but in 1693 they found the water running high and it caused major difficulties for them. At the Natural Bridge of the Chipola River, for example, they described water and mud that reached the girths of their horses. As still happens today, so much water was coming down the Chipola that it overflowed the sink where the river normally goes underground and flooded the bridge itself.

The Chipola, in fact, would continue to cause problems for more than 200 years to come. By the time of the Civil War, for example, an open wooden bridge spanned the river at Marianna, but during high water the entire structure would be submerged. This meant a total halt to mail and other communication with the county seat, as English tutor Sarah Jones, who lived on Governor Milton's Sylvania Plantation, described in 1862:

When we arrived at the swamp near the Chipola, which flows into the Chattahoochie [i.e. Apalachicola], the water was up to the spokes of the wheels, and when we returned, less than two hours afterwards, the water had risen more than half a foot. “It is just nine days since any mail left this place,” said the postmaster, “and the river is rising now, so there will be no chance of sending for a week or two.” And no chance of obtaining the mail either!

Jones related that the postmaster would often throw away all but the most recent newspapers to save postal patrons the "trouble" of reading old news. The river would continue to cause such problems almost annually until the elevation of the bridge was finally raised in the years after the Civil War.

To read more of Miss Jones' descriptions of Jackson County during the Civil War, please consider my new book The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States. It is available through Amazon by clicking the link here or can be purchased in downtown Marianna at Chipola River Book and Tea on Lafayette Street across from the Battle of Marianna monument. You can read more about the Natural Bridge of the Chipola at www.exploresouthernhistory.com/floridacaverns.

A Monster in Two Egg??? Parramore area sightings raise questions!

It appears that Florida's famed "skunk ape" may be ranging north.

Several eyewitnesses have come forward to report sightings of a strange, upright, hairy creature roaming the ponds and swamps about seven miles northeast of the downtown Two Egg crossroads. Locals are calling it the "Two Egg Stump Jumper."

Available descriptions describe the mysterious creature as being smaller in size than a human, but covered in hair. It walks or runs on two legs and seems to frequent swampy and wooded areas. At least two of the sightings have taken place at night, indicating the monster may be nocturnal.

According to eyewitnesses, one of which described the creature as "pale" in color, it seemed as startled to see them as they were to see it. Both described it as upright, but only saw it as it was running away on two legs. It is said to look something like a "hobbit" or "mini" Bigfoot.

Such stories are fairly common in Central and South Florida, where residents have been reporting encounters with what they call the Skunk Ape for years. They are much more rare in Jackson County, but are not entirely unknown.

If you would like to read the full story of the Two Egg Stump Jumper sightings, please visit www.twoeggfla.com/monster.

Two Egg receives first snowfall in a decade!

As snow flurries spread across Jackson County this afternoon, the Two Egg area received its first snowfall in a decade.

Heavy snow began falling in the Two Egg area at around 3:30 p.m. and continued for more than an hour. In places the snow came heavy enough to create a light dusting on grass, trees and plants. The community had been under a Winter Weather Advisory all day. Please click here to see more.

The snow that reached Jackson County marked the southern edge of a large winter storm that is expected to continue moving across the South for the next couple of days. Areas of Alabama, including Mobile, reported snowfall of more than 5 inches and major traffic delays were reported across that state. Heavy snow was also reported south of the Alabama line west of Jackson County in the Florida Panhandle.

Students at Baptist Bible College in Graceville reported heavy snow falling there shortly before 3 p.m. and students at Chipola College in Marianna reported the same about 15 minutes later.

To see more photos of the Two Egg snow, please visit www.twoeggfla.com/snow2010.

Life on a Jackson County Plantation - An Excerpt from the New Book

The following is excerpted from Chapter One of my new book, The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States. The book is available through Amazon.com by clicking this ad. It is also available at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna.

This excerpt discusses Sylvania, the Jackson County plantation of Confederate Governor John Milton:

"...Milton’s plantation, Sylvania, was centered around a surprisingly modest home all but hidden from view in a grove of lush trees. English tutor Sarah L. Jones (a pseudonym) vividly described her first view of plantation manor:


"It was just light enough to distinguish a long, low dwelling, surrounded by a deep piazza reached by steps extending along the whole front. A very pretty style of building, quite Southern, and in the midst of a wood. Excepting the drive to the house, and a cleared space in front, it was literally in a wood, and was therefore appropriately called ‘Sylvania.’

"Jones quickly discovered that Sylvania was a unique mixture of gentility and boisterousness and her arrival at the home in the trees was quite memorable. She described how she was invited into the parlor for tea by Mrs. Milton, all under the watchful eyes of the family’s ten youngest children:

"A fire was soon blazing in the sitting-room, called the parlour, the evenings being chilly; but the doors remained open, and I heard steps and voices on the piazza, and saw by the light of the blazing fire, splendid black eyes peeping in at the windows, and popping away on meeting mine, and I knew that some of the ten were ascertaining what sort of a looking body ‘the new teacher, Miss Jones’ might be.

"At the tea-table some half-dozen of the ten appeared, and I never saw such a collection of eyes in my life. They were all dark, and all beautiful, and all like their mother’s, but no two pairs alike. ‘Pretty girls, and amiable, evidently; manners perhaps a little uncouth, listless and inexpressive; temper easy, mind undeveloped, and character also expressionless. Such were my pupils in Florida….

"Life at Sylvania, however, soon proved to be a bit more difficult than the young teacher had expected. She quickly discovered to her chagrin that Jim, one of the Milton slaves, was a prankster who enjoyed taking items from the home and hiding them in the woods. Prior to bed one night she had arranged a row of books on a piano in the little one-room plantation schoolhouse, only to return to the building the next morning to find them gone:

"‘I bet a dollar that Jim…has carried them off into the woods,’ said Johnny.
‘Why should he do that.’
‘Oh, just for mischief. I left my violin here one evening, and the next day it was gone. A long time afterwards, which I was hunting in the woods, I found it smashed up under the trees; and I know Jim broke it up for mischief.’ Thus the row of books vanished, their loss borne amiably and unconcernedly, without an effort to recover them.

"Miss Jones soon discovered that the girls of the family were just as playful as Jim. In fact, she soon realized that the Miltons, like other wealthy elites of the Southern planting class, did not discipline their children at all:

"…Southern parents who have been reared on the same principals do not understand the discipline necessary to enforce any system. They are too indulgent, too much accustomed to control an inferior class, and to allow their children to control that class, to reconcile to themselves the idea of compelling obedience in their own children when once past infancy, which would perhaps be placing them too much on a par with the negroes.

"In short, the tutor believed that wealthy Southerners did not discipline their children because doing so would place them on the level of slaves. She described how little Johnny would even call a slave to carry his spade for him while helping her in the garden. As a result, her efforts to teach the Milton children were frustrating in the extreme. The children would come and go from the little school on the grounds as they pleased. Sometimes other children from the neighborhood would come, other times not.

"While Jones’ account provides a fascinating look at life in the Milton home itself, the plantation was first and foremost a place of work and farming. The future governor of Florida held 52 slaves, some were children and others house servants, but most were field hands, who worked all day in the fields and woods of the plantation. Jones paid little attention to them during her sojourn at Sylvania, noting only that they were “too busy planting, or ploughing, or chopping wood” to assist her with her small garden...."

To read more, please consider The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States.

Volume 2 now in stock at Chipola River Book and Tea in Marianna

Volume 2 of The History of Jackson County, Florida is now in stock at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna.
The store had 20 autographed copies in stock as of this afternoon and will have more next week. They expected to temporarily sell out over the weekend, so if you are in town and want to pick one up you might want to visit early tomorrow. The shop opens at 10 a.m. and is located in downtown Marianna right across the street from the Battle of Marianna Monument.

You can also order online through Amazon.com. They have a full supply in stock and can ship immediately. Just click here: The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States (Volume 2)

Volume 2 of The History of Jackson County is now available at Amazon.com

I'm pleased to announce that The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States, Volume 2 of my series on the county's history, is now available at Amazon.com for immediate delivery.

The book will be available locally at Chipola River Book and Tea in Marianna next week and I'll let you know as soon as they have a supply on hand.

The sequel to The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years, this volume focuses on the Civil War years in the county. Key elements covered include the plantation era, slavery, secession, the Confederate warship Chattahoochee, the soldiers form the county that served both South and North, the Battle of Marianna, the skirmish at Campbellton, guerrilla activities including the Battles of Forks of the Creek and Port Jackson, Governor John Milton and much more.

The book is 330 pages long and includes wide ranging historical and genealogical information such as listings of all known Union and Confederate soldiers from the county, many previously unpublished accounts of life in Jackson County during the Civil War and exciting new detail on the life of John Milton, the first resident of the county to rise to the governor's chair.

The book will be followed shortly by the release of Daniel Weinfeld's outstanding new history of the Reconstruction era in Jackson County, which makes an outstanding companion volume to the new book (more on that coming soon).

All shipping and delivery of the new book is being handled by Amazon.com. To order, just click ad at the top of this page.

John Milton as a Defendant: The Murder Trial of the Future Governor of Florida

By Dale Cox


For more than a century the story has been told in Jackson County that John Milton had killed a man in a duel at some point in his early life. Milton, of course, was the first person from the county to ascend to the governor’s chair and is remembered primarily as the calm hand that guided Florida through the turbulent years of the War Between the States.

Thirty years before, however, John Milton was the defendant in a sensational murder trial that attracted attention throughout the South. The trial and his killing of J.T. Camp in Columbus, Georgia, is the basis for the duel legend that is a significant part of Jackson County folklore.

The incident took place when Milton was twenty-seven years old. A lawyer and militia colonel living in Columbus, he had run for a seat in the U.S. Congress on the Nullification or States’ Rights platform promoted by former Vice President John C. Calhoun. The “Nullifiers” as they were called drew severe criticism from the supporters of President Andrew Jackson, a national hero then at the height of his power and popularity. Jackson believed that the Union of the states must be preserved at all costs, while Calhoun and his supporters believed that each state was an individual nation that voluntarily made up part of the Union. As such, they believed the states had the right to secede from the Union at any time.

The political campaign in resulted in an angry dispute between Milton and the major in his militia regiment, J.T. Camp, that came to a head in 1834. A newspaper of the time described what happened:

…Col. Milton understanding that his life had been threatened by Maj. Camp, procured a double barreled Gun, and walked over to Nicholas Howard’s Store, and discharged the contents of one of the barrels into his back, and while falling discharged the other into his left breast. – Camp lived but a few moments after he was shot and spoke not a word…I was some distance from them, but can state that Col. Milton discharged his gun with more coolness and deliberation than any man I think would have done under similar circumstances – and left the spot with seeming unconcern.

The future governor surrendered himself to the authorities in Columbus and, as things moved much more quickly in that day, was brought to trial on charges of murder just two weeks later. After hearing from a number of witnesses, likely including Milton himself, the jury acquitted him of all charges.

Milton soon moved to Mobile, Alabama, and eventually on to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he practiced law until he was severely burned in a steamboat accident on July 1, 1845. The accident seems to have prompted his decision to seek a more comfortable life in a rural setting and by 1847 he had acquired thousands of acres surrounding Blue Spring. Naming the plantation Sylvania, because the main house stood in a grove of trees, Milton eventually expanded the farm to include more than 6,330 acres of prime Jackson County land.

He was elected Governor of Florida in 1860 and took office in 1861. The collapse of the Confederacy evident, he took his own life at Sylvania on April 1, 1865, having told friends that death would be preferable to defeat by the North. He is buried at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church cemetery in Marianna.

The historic marker pointing out the site of Sylvania was damaged on election night in 2008, but is now being repaired. To learn more about the life of Governor Milton and his plantation at Sylvania, please visit www.twoeggfla.com/sylvania.

C.S.S. Chattahoochee: The Maiden Voyage of the Forgotten Confederate Defender of Jackson County

by Dale Cox

In January of 1863, the residents of the northeastern corner of Jackson County were stunned by an unexpected sight coming down the Chattahoochee River. The Confederate warship C.S.S. Chattahoochee was making her maiden voyage down the river.


Commissioned on January 1, 1863, the Chattahoochee was a ship of high hopes for the Confederacy. Nearly 150 feet long, she had three retractable masts as well as two independently operating steam propulsion systems. The former allowed her to sail on the open seas without expending coal, while the latter enabled the ship to navigate the sharp bends of the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers.

Crewed by over 100 men, the ship was powerfully armed. Her guns included a state of the art 32-pounder rifle (meaning that it fired shells weighing 32 pounds), a 9-inch gun capable of firing solid shot weighing more than 100 pounds, and four 32-pounder smoothbores. The rifle and 9-inch gun were mounted on pivots so that they could be turned and aimed in any direction. In short, the C.S.S. Chattahoochee was the most powerful warship to actually operate on the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint River system during the War Between the States.

An indication of the significance placed on the vessel by the Confederate government was the assignment of Lieutenant Catesby ap R. Jones (ap was an old term meaning “son of”) to her command. A veteran naval officer, Jones had commanded the ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (also known as the Merrimac) in her historic clash with the ironclad U.S.S. Monitor. In early 1863 he was one of the heroes of the Confederacy. Many of the other officers and men aboard the ship had also served in the clash of the ironclads at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

The design, armament and staffing of the C.S.S. Chattahoochee clearly indicates that the original plan was for her to steam down the river, break the blockade at Apalachicola Bay and then raid Union shipping in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. In short, she was to be a Confederate raider similar to the famed C.S.S. Alabama.

Time and events conspired against this plan. The ship took longer to complete than expected and by the time she was ready for action, the Confederate army had already placed heavy obstructions in the Apalachicola River near present-day Wewahitchka. These barriers prevented Union warships from coming up the river to attack the plantations in Jackson County and beyond, but also prevented the Chattahoochee from going down to Apalachicola Bay. The warship was stranded in the river and became a defender of the Apalachicola Valley instead of a raider of the seas.

Even so, she presented an impressive site as she neared Neal’s Landing on that January day in 1863, but then something went wrong. As the ship was rounding a bend near the northeast corner of Jackson County, the current of the river drove her stern into shallow water. The rudder was damaged and the Chattahoochee began to leak. Men were ordered to the pumps to keep the vessel afloat.

The damage turned out to be serious and a steamboat was called for to tow the warship down to Chattahoochee Landing. To avoid any additional accidents, men were also put on each shore of the river to handle guide ropes to help the ship navigate additional bends in the river between Neal’s Landing and Chattahoochee. Her progress along the eastern border of Jackson County was slow, but she eventually reached her destination.

The damage from the accident would take weeks to repair. It was an inauspicious beginning for a ship that would soon be involved in the greatest naval disaster of the Civil War in Florida. To learn more about that disaster, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/csschattahoochee.

The Pirate of Two Egg, Florida

In continuing the expansion of my http://www.twoeggfla.com/ website, I've added a new page on the man I like to call the "Pirate of Two Egg."

William Augustus Bowles was probably one of the most fascinating individuals ever to walk the soil of Jackson County. Born in Maryland to a Loyalist family in the years before the American Revolution, he served in the British military when he was still just a young teenager. He was sent to Pensacola, where he quickly ran afoul of his superior officers and found himself cast out the service with no means of support, a long way from home.

Wandering into the wilderness, he became lost and was on the verge of starvation when he was rescued by a party of Indian warriors from the village of Tellmochesses which stood about 7 miles east of Two Egg. This was one of the Perryman Towns, so named because they were headed by various members of the Perryman family. William Perryman, the chief of Tellmochesses, was a grandson of the English trader Theophilus Perryman. Like other members of the family, he could speak English and was a prosperous and educated man. He took Bowles across the Chattahoochee River to meet his father, Thomas Perryman, the head of the clan and a prominent leader among the Lower Creek and Seminole Indians.

The Perryman family adopted William Bowles and he married William Perryman's oldest sister. He would go on to become one of the most notorious pirates of the Gulf Coast, a man celebrated each year at Fort Walton Beach's "Billy Bowlegs Festival."

To learn more, please visit the new page at www.twoeggfla.com/billybowlegs.

New Battle of Ekanachattee page now online!

Continuing the expansion of my TwoEggFla.com website, I've added a new page on the Battle of Ekanachatte.

This little known battle took place on March 13, 1818, at what is now Neal's Landing Park in the northeastern corner of Jackson County. The park is located where State Highway 2 intersects the Chattahoochee River and the Georgia line.

For more than 50 years prior to the battle, this had been the site of the Lower Creek village of Ekanachatte ("Red Ground"). The warriors of this town had fought on the side of the British during the American Revolution, taking part in numerous battles and skirmishes in northeastern Florida and Georgia. A British force even camped here briefly in 1778. The town also later sided with the adventurer and pirate William Augustus Bowles during his Florida intrigues in the 1780s and 1790s.

By the time of the Creek War of 1813-1814, Ekanchatte was under the leadership of a chief known by his title of Econchattimico ("Red Ground King"). When U.S. forces overran the Creek villages of central Alabama, he welcomed refugees into his town and did his best to feed and house them. As a result, the village grew to become one of the largest in the Florida/Alabama/Georgia borderlands.

In 1817, when U.S. troops attacked the Lower Creek village of Fowltown in what is now Decatur County, Georgia, Econchattimico joined other Creek and Seminole chiefs across the region in launching what became known as the First Seminole War. His warriors took part in the Battle of Ocheesee on December 15-20, 1817, but returned to their village as a brutal winter settled across the region. A volcanic eruption in Indonesia so impacted the climate of the world that by March of 1818, heavy snow was falling in Jackson County and the creeks and ponds were choked with ice.

Brigadier General William McIntosh, the commander of 1,500 Creek warriors allied with the United States against their own people, took advantage of the severe weather to march south from Fort Mitchell, Alabama. His target was Ekanachatte and on the morning of March 13, 1818, he surprised the village with a devastating attack. When the smoke of the battle cleared, 20 of the town's warriors lay dead and 30 others, along with 130 women and children, had been taken prisoner.

To visit the new page and learn more about the Battle of Ekanachatte, please go to www.twoeggfla.com/ekanachattebattle. You can also read a full account in The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years.

Econchattimico's Reserve - A Unique Jackson County Historic Site

One of the most unique historic sites in Jackson County is located along the old River Road (Highway 271) about six miles north of Sneads and nine miles or so southeast of Two Egg.

Econchattimico's Reserve was an Indian reservation established in 1823 by the terms of the Treaty of Moultrie Creek. Covering four square miles along the west side of the Chattahoochee River, it provided a home for the Lower Creek chief Econchattimico and his followers, most of whom had been born and lived their lives in what is now Jackson County.

Econchattimico, a title that means roughly "Red Ground King," had fought against the United States in the War of 1812 and the First Seminole War of 1817-1818, but by 1823 he was tired of war and was living in peace with his new white neighbors. Jackson County was formed that same year and the chief and his followers actually lived in some of the finest homes in the county at that time. Records of the time indicate that many of them lived in nice frame homes or sturdy log cabins, surrounded by fields and orchards that were enclosed with split rail fences. Econchattimico owned a mill and the reservation also had a blacksmith shop and other necessities of life.


The chief and his followers lived on their lands until 1838, when they were forced west to what is now Oklahoma at gunpoint by soldiers from the U.S. Army and Florida militia. Their removal to the west was part of the episode remembered today as the Trail of Tears.

To learn more, please visit www.twoeggfla.com/econchattimico. You can also learn more by reading The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years available here.

Blue Spring was an important Confederate camp

Although most Civil War camps were temporary affairs, the one at Jackson County's Blue Spring was occupied for three years by troops assigned to protect the area from Union attacks and raids by irregular bands that secreted the swamps of the Apalachicola, Chipola and Choctawhatchee Rivers.

The spring was then part of Sylvania, the plantation of Governor John Milton who had been elected in 1860 just as war was about to erupt between the South and the North. Because of its abundant supply of fresh water, access to plentiful supplies of food from the surrounding farms and plantations and location along what was then the primary road connecting Marianna with Chattahoochee, Tallahassee and the ferry landings at Port Jackson and Bellview, Blue Spring was selected in 1862 as a site for a Confederate encampment.

The first unit documented to have been stationed at the camp at Blue Spring was Captain Richard L. Smith's Marianna Dragoons. This was an independent mounted unit raised in Jackson County during the spring of 1862. It was later consolidated with other similar companies from Alabama and Florida to become Company B, 15th Confederate Cavalry.

Other units known to have been stationed in the camp over the years 1862-1865 included, at various times, Companies E and G of the 5th Florida Cavalry and Captain Robert Chisolm's "Woodville Scouts," a militia cavalry company sent down from Alabama to help protect Marianna.  Chisolm's unit was praised by Governor Milton for the courage it showed during the Battle of Marianna and ultimately became Company I, 5th Florida Cavalry.

The camp at Blue Spring was just a small part of the beautiful landmark's history. You can learn more at www.twoeggfla.com/bluespring or by reading The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years.

Battle of Ocheesee, Florida

This week marks the 192nd anniversary of the Battle of Ocheesee, an important Seminole War engagement fought on the Apalachicola River at the southeast corner of Jackson County.

The battle began on December 15, 1817, when hundreds (if not thousands) of Seminole and Creek warriors attacked a small flotilla of U.S. Army supply boats as it rounded the bend in the river between Ocheesee Bluff and Rock Bluff. These former location is in Calhoun County and the latter is now part of Torreya State Park in Liberty County.

Over the next four or five days, the warriors pinned down the soldiers on their boats in midstream, killing at least two and wounding another thirteen. The fire from both banks of the river was so bad that the soldiers aboard the boats could not even raise their heads above the bulwarks to fire back without being shot themselves.

The stalemate continued until December 19th, when General Edmund Gaines commanding at Fort Scott, Georgia (on today's Lake Seminole), sent a covered boat down with materials to be used in better fortifying the supply boats. The relief boat was also equipped with a special anchor that could be rowed ahead of the other boats and dropped. The soliders could then pull on the anchor rope to slowly move the boats forward. Eventually they managed to get moving again and the attack ended as the boats slowly gained headway.

I've launched a new webpage on the Battle of Ocheesee that you might enjoy checking out. Just follow this link to take a look: www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ocheese1.

Jackson County and the Lost Confederate Gold

by Dale Cox

Parramore - One of the most interesting of Jackson County's legends involves a portion of the famed lost Confederate treasury. When Jefferson Davis and other Southern officials fled Richmond, Virginia at the end of the War Between the States, they took with them the Confederate treasury. According to legend, at least part of that massive haul of gold and silver wound up in Jackson County.

Composed of kegs and boxes filled with silver and gold, the Confederate treasury was valued at somewhere around $500,000 when it was removed from Richmond. In modern terms, it would have been worth millions.

Some of the money disappeared and was likely buried during the time that Davis and the Confederate Cabinet paused in Danville, Virginia. More of the money was used to pay soldiers in the Carolinas and when the fleeing officials reached Washington, Georgia. From there, however, the remaining gold and silver was dispersed in multiple directions. To this day, the final whereabouts of most of the money is a subject of controversy.

It is known that the remaining Confederate officials spread out to minimize the risk that they would be captured by Union cavalry that was desperately searching for them. All were heading for Florida, but they all went by different routes. The goal was to reach the coast where arrangements could be made to flee to Cuba or Texas.

Jefferson Davis was captured near Irwinville, Georgia, as he tried to make his way to Florida, but some officials made it through. Most of the treasure, however, did not. Around $35,000 was seized by the Union army near Gainesville in June of 1865, but otherwise the Confederate gold and silver vanished into history.

THe men involved in hiding it kept some for their own use and spirited some away to support fleeing Confederate officials, but otherwise they never talked about what happened to the money. In various places in Florida and Georgia, however, bits and pieces of the treasure have been found. One of those places, curiously, is Jackson County.

Local tradition has long held that some of the treasure was buried in the corner of a field near the Parramore community in eastern Jackson COunty. The site was then near Bellview Landing, the primary crossing of the Chattahoochee RIver between Chattahoochee and Neal's Landing in 1865 and a likely crossing point into Florida for Confederate authorities or soldiers fleeing Union troops.

During the 1980s, two $20 gold pieces were found at the site, coins that otherwise had no logical reason for being there as the location is not near any old home places. The coins were of the proper date and were consistent with the gold known to have been part of the lost Confederate treasurer.

Could there be more? Or were the two coins left behind when the hidden stash was dug up and removed? Only time and more searching will answer that question.

Note: If you would like to learn more about Jackson County history, please consider my books: The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years;The Battle of Marianna, Florida and Two Egg, Florida: A Collection of Ghost Stories, Legends and Unusual Facts. They are available at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna or online at www.amazon.com.

Annual Homecoming Remembers Old Parramore

The 48th annual Oak Grove Homecoming was held on October 4, 2009, in the historic Jackson County "ghost town" of Old Parramore.

The event celebrates the memory of the community and the people who lived there and has continued with crowds large and small for nearly fifty years. Other than for an occasional wedding or funeral, Oak Grove Baptist Church is used only once each year, for the annual homecoming.

More than 100 people attended this year's event, which featured music by the Covenant Quartet, a popular Gospel group, a message from Rev. Lucius B. "Cap" Pooser and a discussion of the history of Parramore by me. Most popular, however, was the annual dinner on the grounds which gave those in attendance the opportunity to interact and remember old friends and make new ones.

Many descendants of Parramore residents use the annual reunion as an opportunity to learn more about the historic community and to explore their family genealogies.

Parramore was an important riverboat town that grew on the high ground back from the Chattahoochee River during the 1880s and 1890s. The area had been settled as early as the 1750s by members of the Perryman family, English traders who settled with and married into the local Creek Indians. They operated large farms and cattle ranches at Parramore through both the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Other settlers came following the transfer of Florida from Spain to the United States in 1821 and by the time of the War Between the States numerous farms and homes stood through the area.

Local men and boys served in numerous regiments during the War Between the States and also fought at the Battle of Marianna as members of local home guard units. At least one significant skirmish took place in the vicinity when a band of organized deserters and Unionists attacked and disarmed a company of Confederate cavalry.

The town itself was a product of growing commerce on the Chattahoochee River during the 1870s and 1880s. Timber and turpentine operations in the vast longleaf pine forests of the area led to the development of an industrial complex that spurred the growth of the community. By 1900, Parramore had a post office, cotton gin, sawmill, gristmill, blacksmith shop, a number of stores and several landings on the Chattahoochee where limber and barrels of rosin could be loaded aboard paddlewheel steamboats for transport either down to Apalachicola or up to Columbus, Georgia.

The fading of the naval stores industry after World War I also sparked the doom of the town. The riverboats slowly stopped running and by 1950, the old town was gone. One by one the remaining structures disappeared until only a few remain today. Parramore is once again a quiet community in the piney woods of Jackson County.

Be sure to watch for my commemorative book, Old Parramore: The History of a Florida Ghost Town, which will be released later this fall. I'll keep you up to date on release plans. All proceeds from the book will benefit the care of Oak Grove Church and Cemetery, the annual Oak Grove Homecoming, and the Central School Reunion in Old Parramore.

In Memory of Clinton T. Cox, 1925-2009

Clinton T. Cox passed away in his sleep on September 27, 2009.

He was the best friend, the best example, the best adviser and the best father any man ever had or ever will.

He was a member of the "greatest generation" and a veteran of the United States Navy. Although he was a veteran of World War II, Korea and the Cuban Missile Crisis, his greatest battle was against cancer. In the end he was victorious, as we all know that Heaven sings tonight with the voice of a new saint.

May I someday be able to live up to the example that he set.

The Battle of Marianna took place 145 Years Ago Today

Now that the smoke of the reenactments has faded away, it is a good time to remember what really happened on the streets of Marianna 145 years ago today.

The real Battle of Marianna started at around 10 o'clock in the morning on September 27, 1864, when Union troops riding south from Campbellton reached Hopkins' Branch, a small swampy stream about three miles northwest of town. Heavy rains had fallen for the previous two weeks and the swamp was full of water as they approached, creating a natural barrier that Confederate forces hoped might help in holding back the oncoming Federals.

As the head of the Union column approached, three companies of Confederates led in person by Colonel Alexander Montgomery opened fire on them from the opposite side of the swamp. Following a brisk firefight, however, the Southern troops were forced back and started to withdraw to Marianna, fighting as they went.

The Union column followed and by 11:30 a.m. had reached a point just west of town about where the McDonald's on West Lafayette Street stands today. The area was then open fields and woods. It was here that Brigadier General Alexander Asboth, the commander of the Union force, was shown that a small logging road diverged from the main road and followed the route of today's Kelson Avenue around the northern edge of town. Sending part of his men down that road, he moved directly up the Campbellton Road (today's Lafayette Street) with the main body of his command.

Not knowing that the Federals would try to flank the town, the Confederates had prepared their defenses at Ely Corner, the intersection of today's Lafayette and Russ Streets. This was then the western edge of Marianna and Colonel Montgomery placed his four companies of mounted men in a line of battle across the intersection. Most of these men were home guards or militia ("citizen soldiers") and they did not wear Confederate uniforms but instead came to fight wearing their regular work clothes and carrying shotguns, old muskets or any other weapons they had to bring.

Up Lafayette Street behind them, the men of Captain Jesse Norwood's Marianna Home Guard, another "citizen soldier" unit made up of local men and boys, pushed wagons across the street to form a barricade of sorts at about the point where Pizza Hut is located today. Contrary to legend, they did not stand behind this wall, but instead placed it in the street simply to slow down a Union cavalry charge. Like most of the other Confederates who fought at Marianna, Norwood's men did not wear uniforms and carried pretty much any gun they could get their hands on. Some were school boys who had come to fight led by their teacher, Charles Tucker. Others were doctors, lawyers, ministers and even the sheriff and circuit judge. The took up positions hidden behind trees, fences, shrubs and in buildings along each side of Lafayette Street, planning to ambush the Union soldiers if they made it past the mounted men lined up at Ely Corner.

By most accounts it was high noon when the first Union soldiers rounded the bend at Ely Corner. Today's four-lane street was then a narrow dirt road that passed through a heavy grove of trees just before reaching the intersection. As they came around the curve, they were stunned by Montgomery and his mounted Confederates who fired on them from short range. The Union troops tried to charge, but faltered and retreated in confusion, much to the chagrin of General Asboth who shouted "For Shame! For Shame!" at them as they fell back.

Asboth then spurred his horse forward and ordered more of his men to charge, leading them himself. Charging around the curve, they hit the Confederate line before Montgomery and his men could reload their muzzle-loading weapons. Unable to fire back, the Southern horsemen began to withdraw up Lafayette Street toward the center of town with the Northern soldiers hot on their heels.

The Confederates knew about the barricade of wagons and made their way around it, but the Union soldiers were forced to halt in the street to find a way through or around the line of wagons. When they did, Captain Norwood and the men and the boys of the Marianna Home Guard opened fire from their hidden positions along both sides of the street. According to eyewitnesses, "every officer and man at the head of their column" was shot down. General Asboth was wounded in both the face and arm and toppled from his horse. Captain M.M. Young, one of his staff members, was killed on the spot. Majors Nathan Cutler and Eben Hutchinson were severely wounded, as were numerous others.

As deadly as the ambush was, however, it was not enough. Some of the Union troops continued to purse the retreating Southern cavalry while others turned on the local men and boys who had ambushed them. Colonel Montgomery and his horsemen reached Courthouse Square where they ran head on into Asboth's flanking party. Hand to hand fighting took place all around the square and the colonel was knocked from his horse and captured there. Most of his men, however, reached the bridge over the Chipola River (then located on Jackson Street as Lafayette Street had not been extended down the hill at that time), where they held back their attackers until they could cross over and tear up the wooden floor of the bridge.

Back along what is now West Lafayette Street, a fierce battle erupted between the other Union soldiers and the men and boys of the Marianna Home Guard. Those south of the street were driven down the hill to Stage Creek and either killed, wounded, captured or dispersed. Those north of the street fell back onto the grounds of St. Luke's Episcopal Church where a fierce fight was waged for about 30 minutes until the Confederates ran out of ammunition and were forced to surrender. Some were wounded after they had surrendered before Union officers could bring their men under control.

A few Confederates inside St. Luke's Church and two nearby homes refused to surrender and were either burned out or burned to death. In the end, 10 Confederates and 8 Federals were either killed or mortally wounded. Several dozen more were injured and scores were taken prisoner. Participants on both sides described the fight at Marianna as one of the most intense of the war for its size.

In less than one hour, more than 25% of the male population of Marianna had been killed, wounded or captured. On the Union side, the 2nd Maine Cavalry suffered its greatest losses of the war.

If you would like to learn more about the Battle of Marianna, please consider my book: The Battle of Marianna, Florida. It is available online at www.amazon.com or in Downtown Marianna at Chipola River Book and Tea. You can also read more at www.battleofmarianna.com.

145th Anniversary of the Battle of Campbellton

Today, September 26th, marks the 145th anniversary of the 1864 skirmish remembered in Jackson County as the "Battle of Campbellton."

The encounter took place as Union troops crossed Holmes Creek about halfway between Graceville and Chipley (neither of which then existed) on their way to the Battle of Marianna. As they entered Jackson County, the Federal soldiers began to do as much damage as possible to the farms and plantations they encountered.

At the Nelson Watford farm in today's Galilee Community area, for example, they drove off the livestock, took or destroyed the forage, collected all the foodstuffs they could find and even dug up the syrup and lard barrels from the ground and poured them out. Such actions were part of the North's concept of "total war," designed to bring the Confederacy to its knees by destroying anything that might be used to support the Southern armies while also creating so much hardship on the homefront that Confederate soldiers would give up the fight to go home and take care of their families.

As the raiders slowly moved forward, news of their presence spread like lightning through the northwestern corner of Jackson County and the men of Captain Alexander Godwin's Campbellton Cavalry, a "home guard" unit of citizen soldiers, began to assemble on the town square in Campbellton. When Governor John Milton had issued his executive order forming the state's home guard companies during the summer of 1864, he had specified that they were to move immediately to oppose any enemy incursion or raid, while at the same time sending a courier to the nearest Confederate headquarters to summon reinforcements.

This is what the Campbellton men did on the morning of September 26th. As their courier started down the road to Marianna, the men rode out under Captain Godwin to locate the Federal troops and find out what was happening.

Exactly what happened near Campbellton that day is not known. Brigadier General Alexander Asboth, the commander of the Union force, simply reported that "rebel troops" hovered around his column and engaged in "frequent skirmishes" with his vanguard. Surviving records also indicate that two men serving under Captain Godwin were captured that day. Otherwise, no written accounts of the fighting have been found.

Local tradition, however, holds that Godwin and his men fought the oncoming Federals even though they were outnumbered by more than 12 to 1. As Asboth's account indicates, they probably found in the partisan style of their ancestors who had served under such men as the "Swamp Fox" Francis Marion during the American Revolution. Riding up to within range of the enemy, they would fire and then fall back to reload and wait for another opportunity.

The fighting slowed but did not stop the Federals and by nightfall on the 26th they had reached Campbellton and were camped throughout the community. The town square and nearby Campbellton Baptist Church are mentioned by tradition as sites where Union soldiers bedded down for the night. The Battle of Marianna would take place the next day and I will have more on that in the next post.

If you would like to learn more about the raid and the Battle of Marianna, please consider my book: The Battle of Marianna, Florida. It is available through www.amazon.com or locally at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna (on the same block as the Gazebo Restaurant). You can also visit www.battleofmarianna.com for more information.

The Forgotten Indians of Jackson County, Florida

by Dale Cox

It is an often overlooked fact that even after the tragedy of the Trail of Tears, several small groups of Native Americans continued to live in Jackson County. Some had hidden in the woods as the U.S. Army and state militia rounded up most of the Indians in the area, while others either married into or had white families as guardians.

The photo seen here, for example, is of Ola Avery Cox, a Jackson County resident descended from William Brown (Efau Emathla), a noted chief of the Yuchi Creeks.

When Chief Pascofa and his band of Creeks were loaded aboard the steamboat William Gaston and shipped west in January of 1843, newspapers across the region proclaimed that the last Indian had been removed from Northwest Florida. The claim was a bit premature and in less than one year the U.S. Army was once again combing the woods and swamps south of Jackson County for bands of refugee Creeks. Some corn fields were burned and a few people captured, but for the most part the Native Americans once again slipped into the swamps and disappeared.

The situation soon quieted and the presence of hidden bands of Indians in the area was forgotten by the people of Jackson County. That all changed on an October morning in 1851 when three warriors boldly appeared on the main street of Marianna. “Three Indians made their appearance in town on Tuesday last,” reported the Marianna Whig newspaper, “and for the time being created quite a stir.”

“Though apparently friendly,” it was reported, “their belligerent aspects and terrible accoutrements of long knives, tomahawks and battle axes, seem to breathe forth anything but a spirit of peace and amity.”

What happened to these bold warriors was not recorded, although a mysterious note at the end of the newspaper article that the Indians apparently had been “seeking the spirit land” by appearing in Marianna suggests they could have been killed.

The three brave warriors were not alone. One family of Native Americans lived among the slaves on the plantation of Adam McNealy, a member of the Jackson County Commission, during the years leading up to the Civil War. Their family traditions preserve memories not only of the years on the McNealy plantation, but also of how their ancestors hid in the caves at today’s Florida Caverns State Park when Andrew Jackson’s army passed through in 1818.

Other small families, most of Creek ancestry, also continued to live in Jackson County, for the most part in isolated piney woods locations away from the prime areas taken by white settlers. Their exact numbers are impossible to determine as most attempted to assimilate with their white neighbors as other settlers moved into their neighborhoods. A number of families around the Parramore area of eastern Jackson County and along the Calhoun County border area south of Marianna can trace their family trees back to verifiable Native Americans.

It is also worth noting that the 1860 census of Jackson County lists 36 people as “mulatto.” Although the term was generally used in the years after the Civil War to identify individuals of mixed white and black ancestry, during the years before the war it usually referred to those of mixed white and Indian ancestry.

Although many Jackson County residents with Native American ancestry have no knowledge of their Indian heritage, others still preserve legends, traditions and relics of their Indian ancestors. Even though more than 160 years have passed since the end of the Trail of Tears, the descendents of those who escaped the great tragedy of Indian Removal can still be found in Jackson County.

Note: To learn more about the history of the area, please consider my books: The History of Jackson County Florida: The Early Years, The Battle of Marianna, Florida, Two Egg, Florida and The Early History of Gadsden County. They are available online at www.amazon.com or locally at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna.