Florida In The Civil War, by Lewis N. Wynne and Robert A. Taylor

There are a lot of similarities between this book and the vastly inferior book about Florida’s history in the Civil War by J.J. Dickison [1], despite the wide span of time between them.  For example, Wynne and Taylor have a chapter each on Florida troops in the Eastern and Western front, and this book even borrows the maps and pictures from Dickison’s shambolic work, even giving him an extended personal mention about his activities.  Is the state of historiography in Florida that poor to justify the use of such poor sources so often?

Despite a somewhat odd organization, and clearly neo-Confederate leanings (calling the Civil War “The War Between The States” is usually a good sign that a work is a poor work of history, since one cannot build a solid base of historical interpretations on faulty philosophical foundations), the book does manage to present a somewhat incomplete but certainly intriguing view of Florida’s often-neglected place in the historiography of the Civil War.

It seems impossible to find a complete book on Florida’s involvement in the Civil War that runs much longer than 150 pages.  This book includes ten chapters arranged somewhat oddly, including a chapter on the “Seven Days of Destiny” where Florida seceded, another on the beginning of the war around Pensacola and Charleston Harbors, a focus on Florida contributions to the Eastern Theater, and then the contribution to the Western Theater.  After this comes an insightful look at Florida’s role as the source of fresh beef and corn whiskey for the Confederate war effort, a look at the Union blockage, the situation in the home front, an examination of Florida’s Unionists, a look at some of Florida’s battles, an examination of Florida’s bitter Reconstruction history, and then a very short epilogue of the continuing controversy over Florida’s Civil War history.

This book deserves some credit for a glossy and easy-to-read narrative, even a bit self-contradictory, that examines some often neglected areas about the often-neglected role of Florida in the Civil War (including Key West, Fernandina, and Ft. Myers’ vital roles in providing Unionist bastions in the state.  Where the history gets more confusing is the book’s neglect of the war in the Tampa Bay area, which appears very confusing from the book’s narrative.  Tampa Bay’s role in blockade running, the various operations to occupy it on both sides, and the role of Egmont Key (in Tampa Bay) as a place of refuge for Unionists are all mentioned but without enough context to make sense of it.  This is a puzzling problem for a book which cites as a source a book specifically about Tampa Bay’s role in the Civil War and Reconstruction.  Perhaps the problem is in the dearth of suitable historical materials to make sense of a complicated situation.

It has long puzzled me that in a nation where the Civil War is hugely important that little has been done to celebrate the important role of the Civil War in Florida, outside of the occasional re-enactments in Tallahassee and Olustee.  As the 150th anniversary of the Civil War approaches, areas with pivotal Civil War history (like the Jacksonville area, Marianna, Ft. Myers, Key West, Indian River, and Pensacola) should do more to bring attention to their Civil War history to potential tourists.  To do so, though, Florida will need books that do a better job of explaining Florida’s Civil War history than currently exist on the market to provide a compelling narrative of what happened during those four fateful years in an often neglected and forgotten state, forgotten in the 1860’s and still forgotten today.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/book-review-confederate-military-history-of-florida/