Posted on February 28, 2013 by Boyd

Corn, not Cotton

Even though the North produced more agricultural goods than the South during the Civil War, at the beginning of the war in 1861, few observers would have predicted that the South, with its overwhelmingly agricultural economy and seemingly endless supply of slave labor, would find it difficult to provide adequate food supplies to its soldiers and citizens. However, a number of factors produced food shortages early on in the war and especially by 1863. By then, the continuing and growing absence of men from their farms due to military service, the impressment of food and slaves for the use of the Confederate Army, a tightening Union naval blockade, and a poor transportation system combined to spark bread riots in many Southern cities and led to increased misery on the Confederate home front, where poor families struggled to feed themselves.

Steamship docked at Apalachicola (ca. 1860)

Florida was not immune from these conditions. Although the state’s location far away from the main fighting fronts meant that the vast majority of its agricultural land was untouched by the enemy, most of Florida’s white men of military age were serving in the Confederate Army outside of the state by the summer of 1862. This meant that they could not be at home working to feed their families. In addition, by 1863, most of Florida’s ports were either occupied or blockaded by the U.S. Navy, so few outside supplies reached the state. Of course, blockade-runners succeeded in bringing goods to Florida’s shores, but most of these items were either luxury goods or weapons, not provisions that could feed Florida’s poor farm families. Given the swift decline in value of Confederate currency during the war, planters found they had to rely on the one crop that was still valuable enough in itself to be used to purchase needed supplies and the specialty goods that the blockade-runners provided. That crop was cotton.

Soon after the war began, individual Confederate states adopted an unofficial embargo on cotton sales and shipments to Europe. Since the textile mills of Britain and France depended on Southern cotton to produce their cloth, the embargo would, so it was reasoned, force those European counties to break the Union blockade and recognize the legitimacy of the Confederate government. Unfortunately for the South, this scenario never played out: a glut of cotton on the world market in 1861-1863 allowed Europe to get by on existing cotton stockpiles, and Britain, the world’s strongest power, turned to cotton grown in its vast Indian empire. Although Europe was not buying up Confederate cotton, and Southern families needed corn, not cotton to fill their bellies, the crop was too valuable a commodity for planters to curb its production.

Florida Governor John Milton (ca. 1861)

Faced with a food crisis, some Southern governors in the cotton producing states passed legislation to force planters to plant less cotton and grow more corn to feed the general population as well as the ever hungry Confederate armies. Florida’s governor, John Milton, was one of the most vigorous proponents of increasing food production at the expense of cotton. Even though Florida exported cattle and corn to the rest of the Confederacy east of the Mississippi, Milton feared that increased Confederate dependence on Florida agriculture and the increasing difficulty for poor Floridians to produce or purchase enough food would result in food shortages within the state.

Field of shocked corn, Gainesville (1911)

After the legislature refused to take up planting restrictions in its last session, Governor Milton tried to appeal to the planters’ patriotism. On February 24, 1863, he issued a proclamation to Florida’s planters that called on their sense of honor to cut cotton production for the sake of the Confederate war effort and the lives of women and children. Given the public’s loathing of war profiteering, Milton tried to instill guilt in those planters who “have been infected by the evil spirit of gain . . . and has distinguished them as despicable wretches, who would sacrifice the Confederate States and distress women and children to glut their insatiate greed for dollars and cents.” Despite this and other appeals, Milton continued to struggle with the issue of food production for the rest of the war. Florida proved to be an essential source of supply for the Confederate Army, but, as Milton feared, this left less for Floridians back home.

For the history of Florida’s economic role in the war see Robert A. Taylor, Rebel Storehouse: Florida’s Contribution to the Confederacy (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003).

A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979)

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Katrina

A. Philip Randolph, the first president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, was born in Crescent City, Florida, and grew up in Jacksonville. The son of a Methodist minister, he attended the City College of New York, and later published The Messenger, a radical black magazine.

The 1937 contract between the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Pullman Company cut working hours, increased pay, and improved working conditions.

Randolph was also a major influence in ending discrimination in defense plants and segregation of the U.S. military. He was director of the August 28, 1963 March on Washington, D.C. — the largest civil rights demonstration in American history.

Group portrait of members attending the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters convention in Washington, D.C.

The membership of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters included the African-American porters and maids who worked on the railway trains. Randolph, Benjamin McLaurin, and Julius and Eliza Rosier Glass were natives of Jacksonville. Julius was a fireman on the Florida East Coast Line.

Portrait of A. Philip Randolph

The David Clark

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Beth

Steamer David Clark, St. Johns River (1880s)

The David Clark, launched in Jacksonville on February 27, 1875, was built in the Brock and Stevens shipyard, registered #6865. It traveled the Jacksonville to Enterprise (on Lake Monroe) run for the Brock Line on the St. Johns River. It was sold in auction to Captain Joseph Smith in August of 1877 because of Jacob Brock’s bankruptcy.

In October of 1889, it burned in Fernandina, Florida, and was officially listed as abandoned in 1893. The steamer had a side-wheel paddle and a tonnage of 483 gross and 442 net. It was 147.5′ long, 41.4′ wide, with a depth of 7.8′. It had 51 nominal horsepower, and could make speeds of 14 knots.

Key West Sunsets from the Dale M. McDonald Collection

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Jon

Mallory Square (1979)

Smathers Beach (1988)

Fishing at the Navy Outer Mole (1988)

Sailing at dusk (1979)

Pelican silhouette (1983)

The Koreshan Unity Collection (Part Ten)

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Beth and Bethanie

In previous posts, we’ve discussed how we approached processing a large, very disorganized collection, talked about the nature of the collection and some of the interesting items found in it, and looked at the background and some of the beliefs of the Koreshan Unity as revealed in the collection.

Full-time processing of the collection has continued in the meantime, so let’s take a look at the very significant progress our archivists have made in transforming the collection into an easily-accessible research resource, supported in large part by National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant funding (www.archives.gov/nhprc).

We have largely completed processing of the Koreshan Unity’s administrative records and operating records, including general accounting and transactions, payroll, stocks, taxes, attorney fees, legal cases, insurance, will and estate records, and other records documenting the administration and operations of the organization and community.

These records include foundation documents such as original constitutions, corporation records, and early minutes of the organization. The pages below, taken from minutes in 1893, document the Unity’s adoption of a constitution in which an Archivist and an Assistant Archivist were designated as two of the seven members of the Board of Directors. It is thanks to the work of these first Koreshan Unity archivists that today’s archivists have such a valuable collection to process and make available.

We have also completed processing the files of Hedwig Michel, a German immigrant who joined the Unity in 1941 and was the last remaining member upon her death in 1982. Processing the papers of “The Last Koreshan” was complicated by the extensive intermingling of personal and organizational records. The three items below are examples of the wide variety of materials found in Michel’s files.

Founder Cyrus Teed and other early members are also well-represented among the processed Koreshan Unity files. Daily life is captured within the correspondence, manuscripts, and the various other personal papers of Koreshan members. Other files processed include the Koreshans’ extensive Event Files containing programs and other records of the many performances and other events held at the Koreshan Unity from the very beginning of their time in Estero. Events included plays, skits, Koreshan Unity Orchestra concerts, national holidays, the annual celebration of Cyrus Teed (the Solar festival) and Victoria Gratia (the Lunar festival) and, remarkably, a full night of entertainment leading up to the unveiling of a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt sent to the Koreshan Unity by the U.S. Government.

Among the most exciting portion of the Koreshan Unity Papers is an extensive collection of photographs. The Koreshans were as diligent about documenting their history through photography as they were through more traditional means. They photographed and maintained images of their headquarters buildings, residences, and natural surroundings; and of founders and other members engaged in every activity from dining, to dramatic and musical performances, to gardening, to observing holidays and festivals. Most excitingly, over 1,000 of these photos have already been scanned and made available on Florida Memory and many more will be in coming months.

College of Life, Cottage Grove Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, ca. late 1880s.

The building above as the Unity’s headquarters after they incorporated under Illinois law in 1886.

Lunar festival procession led by Koreshan Unity band, April 10, 1906

Eleanor Castle, Victoria Gratia, and Koreshan Unity founder Cyrus Teed, Pan American Exposition, Buffalo, New York, 1901

For a more in-depth look into the history of the Koreshan Unity, see the Koreshan Unity exhibit on Florida Memory.

Detour to Liberty: Black Troops in Florida during the Civil War

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Boyd

In his annual message to the Florida General Assembly on November 17, 1862, Governor John Milton pointed to Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which proclaimed freedom for all slaves living in areas of the country still in rebellion by January 1863, as a plot to “subjugate Florida . . . and to colonize the State with negroes . . . .” The proclamation was, Milton argued, nothing less than “the means the most terrific which could be devised to alarm the people of the South . . . .” As Milton feared, the Emancipation Proclamation came to pass on January 1, 1863, but the alarm that sounded across the South was soon compounded by the Union’s deployment of black troops against the Confederacy. Beginning in March 1863, Florida was the site of some of the earliest operations of black regiments, which became an essential part of Union operations in the state until the end of the war.

Drawing of a black Union infantryman

As early as November 1862, black companies conducted raids against salt works and saw mills along both sides of the coastal border between Georgia and Florida. These attacks were the outgrowth of the U.S. War Department’s order of August 25, 1862. That order allowed the creation of a limited number of black units within the U.S. Army’s Department of the South, which was responsible for military operations along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The black soldiers in the raids consisted of men from the coasts of those states who had either escaped slavery by running away or by Federal occupation of their masters’ lands. The black companies came from the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment, one of the first black units organized during the war. Under the command of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a prominent Massachusetts abolitionist, the 1st South Carolina, like all black regiments during the war, were led by white officers.

In January 1863, Higginson received permission to lead several companies of his regiment on a raid up the St. Mary’s River along the Georgia-Florida border. This raid was followed by a much more substantial operation launched in March 1863 against Jacksonville. Higginson and Brigadier General Rufus Saxton convinced the commander of the Department of the South, General David Hunter, to order the 1st South Carolina, along with the nucleus of what would become the 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry, to launch an expedition into northeast Florida with the objective of occupying Jacksonville and conducting raids along the St. Johns River. Higginson and Saxton argued successfully to Hunter that such an expedition would open up important opportunities for the North: the raid would support and secure Unionist sentiment in northeast Florida, which was known to be the home of many transplanted Northerners; a Union occupied Jacksonville would act as a magnet for escaped slaves, who could in turn be recruited as soldiers; and a successful operation carried out by black troops would certainly increase the likelihood that the North would come to support the large-scale recruitment of blacks into the U.S. Army. Furthermore, the Union already had a presence in northeast Florida which could only increase the expedition’s chances of success: the Union occupied Jacksonville for brief periods in March and October 1862, and the U.S. Navy, which already had blacks in its service, held Amelia Island and St. Augustine since the spring of 1862 and conducted missions on the St. Johns.

With these factors in its favor, the black units moved to occupy Jacksonville on March 10, 1863. Higginson’s men captured a town that was undefended by the Confederates, whose strategy, given the small number of troops at their disposal, was to protect the rail lines to the west of Jacksonville and prevent Union advances into the interior beyond the St. Johns until such time when reinforcements might allow them to retake the city. The Union troops quickly occupied the town and began to take up defensive positions on the outskirts. It was the largely untrained men of the 2nd South Carolina regiment that ran into the first Confederate resistance. A combined force of Rebel cavalry and infantry engaged a company of the 2nd South Carolina men on the morning of the second day of the occupation. Although they had never fought a battle, the soldiers did not panic. They returned fire and conducted an orderly withdrawal to more secure positions within supporting range of naval gunboats. The black regiments remained in control of Jacksonville, eventually reinforced by a couple of white soldiered regiments, until March 29. During that time they also conducted raids up the St. Johns as far south as Palatka. The short duration of the Jacksonville expedition was due to General Hunter’s decision to withdraw the troops for use in South Carolina, where the Union was preparing an assault on Charleston. Higginson was of course upset by this decision and believed that it might have been due to resistance among some top officers in Hunter’s command to the idea of creating black units in the first place.

At any rate, the 1st and 2nd South Carolina returned to their home base. In 1864, both units were re-designated the 33rd and 34th U.S. Colored Infantry regiments respectively and continued to serve in the Department of the South for the duration of the war. Although some in the North argued that the expedition to Florida had been a failure, this view was countered in the press by many newspapers that praised the operation as proof of the viability of employing black soldiers in the war. The expedition almost certainly influenced President Lincoln and the War Department’s decision on March 25, 1863, to launch the large-scale recruitment of blacks into the U.S. Army. This order led to the wholesale creation of black regiments, which became an essential part of the Union war effort for the rest of the conflict.

The 1863 expedition was not the last time that black troops occupied Jacksonville. In February 1864, the Union launched what would be the war’s largest military campaign in Florida. Designed to interrupt the supply of cattle and goods from the state that were destined for Confederate armies outside of Florida, add more escaped and freed slaves to the ranks of the U.S. Army; and possibly bring Florida back into the Union as a reconstructed free state, the northeast Florida campaign of 1864 consisted of some 7,000 Union troops, including three black regiments: the 1st North Carolina Colored Infantry, the 8th U.S. Colored Infantry (USCT), and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. The 54th had already distinguished itself on the ramparts of South Carolina’s Fort Wagner during the unit’s now famous assault on that Confederate bastion in July 1863. Unlike the 54th, however, the two other regiments had never been in combat, and the 8th USCT had not even completed its training when it arrived in Florida along with the rest of the Union troops on February 7, 1864.

Soldiers of the 54th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers

Leaving about 1,500 men to secure Jacksonville and conduct other missions, the main Union force of 5,500 troops under the command of Brigadier General Truman Seymour began a march on February 20 west towards Lake City and the Suwannee River beyond. East of Lake City the Federals ran into advanced elements of a Confederate force of 5,000 men that established defensive positions outside of Lake City at Olustee, a station along the Florida, Atlantic & Gulf Railroad. The battle, which lasted through the afternoon of February 20th, was a particularly bloody encounter that ended in a Confederate victory and a humiliating Union retreat back to Jacksonville.

The more experienced 54th Massachusetts as well as the 1st North Carolina played an important role in the battle by holding back the Confederate advance as the rest of Seymour’s regiments withdrew. One of those regiments, the 8th USCT, experienced some of the day’s heaviest fighting. Its untested ranks were ordered forward and ran into a storm of Confederate fire. Stunned, confused, and frightened, the men of the 8th USCT behaved as many better trained white units behaved in their first battle. Many of them ran or tried to find cover, while others were able to compose themselves and return the Confederate fire. At the end of the battle, the 8th USCT lost more men than any other Union unit: forty-nine killed, 188 wounded, and 73 missing. Of these missing, several became prisoners and were eventually transferred to the infamous Confederate prisoner of war camp at Andersonville, Georgia. Others may have faced an even worse fate. Several postwar accounts, mostly from Confederate sources, recalled that individual Confederate soldiers killed some of the wounded and captured black soldiers. Olustee, or the Battle of Ocean Pond (the Northern name for the battle), turned out to be one of the war’s most horrendous encounters for the Union’s black soldiers.

Kurz and Allison lithographic print of the Battle of Olustee

After Olustee, black troops continued to play an important role in Union operations in Florida. In September 1864, they made up part of the force that attacked Marianna, Florida, and on March 6, 1865, black soldiers formed the mass of the Union troops that engaged the Confederates south of Tallahassee at Natural Bridge. The Union lost the battle and was denied the opportunity to capture Tallahassee during the war. A little over two months later, however, black troops marched into Florida’s capital as part of the Union occupying force that received the formal surrender of Confederate Florida on May 20, 1865.

Today, while the operations of black troops are better known in theaters of the war such as South Carolina (the assault on Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863) and Virginia (the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864) directed at the heart of the Confederacy, the actions of black troops in Florida, although less famous, were just as crucial to establishing the importance of black units in the Union war effort. Although the direct path to Union victory and black freedom pointed to Atlanta and Richmond, the route included many detours, like Florida, which led to ultimate emancipation.

For the operations of black troops in Florida see Stephen V. Ash, Firebrand of Liberty: The Story of Two Black Regiments that Changed the Course of the Civil War (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008); Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., “The Battle of Olustee” in John David Smith, ed., Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); and David J. Coles, “Shooting Niggers Sir”: Confederate Mistreatment of Union Black Soldiers at the Battle of Olustee” in Gregory J. W. Urwin, ed., Black Flag Over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004).

Clay—Liston I (February 25, 1964)

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Jon

On February 25, 1964, Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston in Miami Beach to win his first heavyweight boxing title. Liston came into the match heavily favored; however, the 22-year-old Clay demonstrated superior speed and quickness against his older opponent, age 32. Liston succumbed to Clay by technical knockout (TKO) after failing to respond to the seventh round bell.

Clay – Liston I: Miami Beach (February 25, 1964)

Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali one week after his first fight against Sonny Liston. In 1967, Ali was stripped of his boxing titles when he, a conscientious objector, refused to serve in the Vietnam War. After three years away from the ring, Ali returned to boxing and claimed several more titles before retiring in the early 1980s.

Clay – Liston I: Miami Beach (February 25, 1964)

Ali is regarded by many boxing historians as the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. In addition to his many accomplishments inside the ring, Ali has created a lasting legacy as a philanthropist, social activist and cultural icon.

Before the 500: Daytona Beach Racing

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Jon

Before the big race moved inland to an asphalt track and became an American classic, drivers fulfilled their need for speed on the beaches of Central Florida.

The crowd assembles… (January 1952)

Gentlemen, start your engines! (ca. 1910)

Everybody gets pole position (January 14, 1905)

And they’re off! (February 1952)

Into the turn… (February 1952)

Watch out for wrecks! (February 1952)

And the winner is… Edward Knowles Rayson! (1947)

BONUS PHOTO!

Richard Petty and friends (February 1971)

What’s your favorite Daytona 500 photo? Share it with us in the comments.

Eartha M.M. White Tells a True Life Ghost Story

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Katrina

Eartha M.M. White tells this true life ghost story based on an incident from before the Civil War. The story was told to Eartha White by her mother, Clara White, who was raised in slavery on Amelia Island in Fernandina, Florida.

“Ghost Story”

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Eartha M. M. White was a humanitarian, businesswoman and philanthropist from Jacksonville. She created educational opportunities and provided relief to African-Americans in northeastern Florida. White helped found several organizations and institutions, including the Clara White Mission, Mercy Hospital and the Boy’s Improvement Club. She was designated as a Great Floridian by the Florida Department of State in the year 2000.

Eartha M.M. White and her mother Clara White: Jacksonville, Florida (ca. 1910)

This recording was made in January 1940 as part of the Federal Writers Project. The voice introducing the story is that of Robert Cook. Cook also traveled with Zora Neale Hurston to gather folklife recordings and photographs across the state.

In Florida, the Federal Writers Project was based out of Jacksonville, and directed by historian Carita Doggett Corse. Seven recording expeditions were conducted in the 1930s and ’40s in Florida by Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, Stetson Kennedy, Robert Cook, and others.

The field recordings were made on acetate disks, usually recorded at 78 rpm. The originals are still housed with the Library of Congress.

Put Me In, Coach!

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Beth

In a tradition a century old, major league baseball teams are reporting to spring training camps in Florida (the Grapefruit League) and Arizona (the Cactus League) to prepare for the upcoming season.