NOTE: This post originally appeared on The Sable Arm on February 20, 2011. It has been reposted in honor of the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Olustee.
Thus was described the Battle of Olustee, fought on February
20, 1864, by a quick-witted officer in Co. K, 7th Connecticut Infantry. While
the battle itself was not one of the finer military exploits produced by the
Union war effort during the American Civil War, it did display the fighting
prowess of the African American soldiers who fought there.
In early 1864, Federal forces launched their largest
military operation in Florida that was a result of both political and military
considerations. With the presidential election coming up in November the
Republicans hoped to organize a loyal Florida government in time to send
delegates to the Republican nominating convention. In addition to the political
objectives Major General Quincy Gillmore, stated that the expedition was
necessary to “procure an outlet for cotton, lumber, Timber, Turpentine, and the
other products of the State… cut off one of the enemy's sources of commissary
supplies.”
In February, 1864 Gillmore received approval for his plans
to occupy Jacksonville with a large force and to extend Federal operations over
much of northeast Florida. About 6,000 troops from Gillmore's Department of the
South were selected for the operation and on February 7th these troops took
Jacksonville. One week later Gillmore met with his subordinate, Truman Seymour
who was not held in the highest of esteem by his men. One soldier later
described the situation: “The Florida expedition was intrusted to the command
of General Truman Seymour, considered by more than the rank and file, as an
eccentric West Point crank who aped only Napoleon in prowling around camps at
night to watch the men on duty, but he lacked the genius of his prototype in
the performance of his own duty.”
Gillmore ordered that defensive works be constructed and
appointed Seymour commander of the newly-created District of Florida. On
February 19 he assembled his troops in preparation for a movement against the
Confederates the next day.
The next day saw confused fighting and when some of
Seymour’s white units broke, he sent in the untried men of the 8th United
States Colored Troops. The 8th had trained at Camp William Penn in Pennsylvania
but had “little practice in loading and firing” their weapons, according to the
regimental surgeon. Lt. Oliver Norton of the 8th recalled that after standing
up to the murderous fire, his men had to withdraw:
As the men fell back they gathered in groups like frightened
sheep, and it was almost impossible to keep them from doing so. Into these
groups the rebels poured the deadliest fire, almost every bullet hitting some
one. Color bearer after color bearer was shot down and the colors seized by
another. Behind us was a battery that was wretchedly managed. They had but
little ammunition, but after firing that, they made no effort to get away with
their pieces, but busied themselves in trying to keep us in front of them.
Lieutenant Lewis seized the colors and planted them by a gun and tried to rally
his men round them, but forgetting them for the moment, they were left there,
and the battery was captured and our colors with it.
Around this time the two units that were bringing up the
rear – the 54th Massachusetts and the 1st North Carolina Colored Volunteers
(35th USCT) – arrived on the scene. The 54th raised its sarcastic battle cry
“Three cheers for Massachusetts and seven dollars a month!” and went on line.
One eyewitness said that they “fought like tigers” while the 1st NCCV “went up
into the field, halting and firing fiercely, with its right well forward, so as
to form an angle of…120 degrees with the line of the Fifty-Fourth.” With the
two black units holding the field, Seymour decided to form a new line farther
to the rear and withdraw his other units, which left the 54th and 1st NCCV
terribly exposed to the Confederate fire. With their comrades pulling back,
there was nothing left for them to do but to withdraw in good order.
The casualties reported by the three black units at Olustee
tell the tale better than any eyewitness account ever could. The 54th lost 13
men killed, 65 wounded, and 8 missing. The 1st NCCV (which had officially been
redesignated the 35th USCT, yet still clung to its old name) lost 22 killed,
131 wounded, and 77 missing. And, finally, the poor 8th USCT lost 49 killed,
188 wounded, and 73 missing. The Federals as whole would lose 26.5% of their
men, making Olustee proportionally the third bloodiest battle of the entire
war.
To make matter worse, Olustee was one of the many sanguinary
fights in which the Confederates committed atrocities after the fighting had
ended.
William Frederick Penniman of the 4th Georgia Cavalry leaves
the following account:
In passing over the field, and the road ran centering
through it, my attention was first attracted to the bodies of the yankees,
invariably stripped, shoes first and clothing next. Their white bodies looked
ghastly enough, but I particularly notice that firing seemed to be going on in
every direction, until the reports sounded almost frequent enough to resemble
the work of skirmishers. A young officer was standing in the road in front of
me and I asked him, "What is the meaning of all this firing I hear going
on". His reply to me was, "Shooting niggers Sir. "I have tried
to make the boys desist but I can't control them". I made some answer in
effect that it seemed horrible to kill the wounded devils, and he again
answered, "That's so Sir, but one young fellow over yonder told me the
niggers killed his brother after being wounded, at Fort Billow, and he was
twenty three years old, that he had already killed nineteen and needed only
four more to make the matter even, so I told him to go ahead and finis the
job". I rode on but the firing continued. The next morning I had occasion
to go over the battle field again quite early, before the burial squads began
their work, when the results of the shooting of the previous night became quite
apparent. Negroes, and plenty of them, whom I had seen lying all over the field
wounded, and as far as I could see, many of them moving around from palace to
place, now without a motion, all were dead. If a negro had a shot in the shin
another was sure to be in the head.
The defeat at Olustee ended the Union’s effort to organize a
loyal Florida government in time for the 1864 election. Jacksonville would
remain in Union hands until the end of the war, although the cost for such a
gain was incredibly steep. Still, the positive long-term gains achieved after
Olustee can be attributed in large part to the African American soldiers who
fought and bled there 150 years ago this week.
