Confederate Florida: The Road to Olustee

by William H. Nulty

At the end of 1863 the Federal forces in the Department of the South were tied up in siege operations against Charleston and Savannah, operations that showed little progress or promise. The commander of the Department, Major General Quincy A. Gillmore, led an expedition into Florida to recruit blacks, cut off commissary supplies headed for other parts of the Confederacy, and disrupt the railroad system within Florida. Expedition forces landed at Jacksonville on February 7, 1864.
 
The engagement at Olustee, not far from Gainesville, took place on February 20, 1864. it was the largest Civil War battle in Florida and one of the bloodiest Union defeats of the entire war. Nonetheless, because the engagement forced the Confederacy to divert 15,000 men from the thinly manned defense of Charleston and Savannah, it delayed critical reinforcement of the Army of Tennessee, which was fighting desperately to prevent the Union invasion of northwestern Georgia. Makin use of detailed maps and diagrams, Nulty presents a vivid account of this fascination Civil War effort.

Genres: Civil War, War, History

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 1990

Reviews

[Sean Chick · Rating 2 out of 5]

The prose is dry as dirt, the first few chapters have a confusing narrative, and the personalities are introduced with little background. The title is even misleading, as there is next to nothing about conditions in Florida after Olustee. The importance of salt is barely mentioned. I give it an extra star for the dull, but thorough battle narrative and analysis.

[JeffParrotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

Informative, but the section about Olustee is a pasting together of individual accounts without much further explanation. This leaves the narrative desperate for context and oblique to the battle itself.

[Josh Liller · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Confederate Florida" is the story of the battle of Olustee, the largest engagement of the Civil War to occur in Florida. The book's title is a little misleading. The Civil War in Florida before the Olustee campaign gets a very light treatment - about 50 pages out of 225. While it is a fairly solid military history of Olustee, both in narrative and analysis of the battle and campaign, it should not be looked at for a more general history of Florida in the Civil War. I'm still looking for such a book. It offers some good maps of the battle and doesn't take sides while being pretty reasonably critical of both Union and Confederates.

The book does get a little repetitive in places. As much as it cares about the events leading up to the battle it gives barely a mention to what happened afterwards during the remaining year of the war in Florida, not the least of which being the Battle of Natural Bridge which ties into things Nulty talks about in the book yet goes completely unmentioned (at least according to my memory and the book's Index). The main characters like Gilmore, Seymour, Beauregard, Finegan, and Colquitt aren't given much depth. In most history books, they would have gotten better introductions - pages rather than sentences. Colquitt and his brigade had spent significant time in the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862-63. Seymour gets the most attention, but it seems an awkward analysis from the outside - I presume due to a lack of more direct sources like Seymour's own papers. I have to wonder what sources related to Olustee have become available in the nearly 25 years since this book was published.

This is probably my second time reading this book, but if so the first was more than a decade ago (before I started tracking books on GoodReads) and my memory of the book's details were very fuzzy. I selected it for a Florida book club I lead and now regret doing so as it is a bit too much military history for a typical book club.

A solid and fair military history, with room for improvement and perhaps a little dated.

[PMB · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little dry, as these books often are. The author is a retired military man, and it shows. At times the book feels more like an academic enterprise than a narrative (especially the conclusion), but never to a fault. The writing lacks flair, but it's even, concise, and easy to follow (which is important when describing battles).

I'm a native Floridian and have lived most of my life in Tallahassee. I travel a lot in state and know the Suwannee River basin quite well. That said, I wish the book had more maps. That's a criticism I have of almost every book about the war, but this one in particular really suffers from their absence. If you don't know north FL, it might be hard to picture where the towns of Baldwin, St. Marks, Cedar Key, Quincy, and Lake City are in relation to one another. I would have liked more maps depicting the evolution of the Battle of Olustee as well. The author does a good job orienting the reader, but there's nothing like a good map.

There are plenty of amazing excerpts from letters and diaries, with firsthand accounts throughout the book. Lots of stuff about the 54th Massachsetts too (the all black regiment made famous in the movie Glory). They spent a lot of time in FL, and played a huge role in the campaign from Jacksonville to Olustee. The research was more than thorough, from cover to cover. If you're interested in FL's Civil War history, this is a must read. It's the most comprehensive examination I've come across.

Incidentally, my family goes back several generations in this area, and I found a relative's name on a muster roll of soldiers who fought at Olustee. There's an annual reenactment. I went a few years ago. Kind of a weird scene.