Wilderness of Destruction

Modern historians have consistently treated Florida as a military backwater. Despite that assessment, Rebel guerrillas blocked repeated Union attempts to establish a stronghold in the Florida's interior. After the "abandonment" of Florida by the Confederate government, in early 1862, Gov. John Milton organized guerrilla units to protect the state's citizens. These irregular companies kept Union forces largely confined to a few coastal outposts (St. Augustine, Fernandina, and Ft. Myers), though the state's citizens suffered greatly from the depredations of Unionist units. After the Federals capture of Vicksburg, the South's only significant source of beef were the vast herds in Florida. It fell to the state's Rebel partisans to protect the state's interior, thereby keeping open routes for the delivery of longhorns to the South's major armies. Skirmishes and battles raged throughout Florida, but the flow of beef cattle halted only after Appomattox.