September 27, 1864
Marianna’s Urban Battlefield
Traffic
flows across site of Civil War battle
By:
Dale Cox
Thousands of cars pass each day over the ground where more than one hundred
years ago, hundreds of men fought and bled. Much of the scene of the 1864
Battle of Marianna is now covered by the pavement of a four-lane highway.
The battle was fought on September 27, 1864, when hundreds of Union soldiers
rode overland on horseback from Pensacola and attacked the city at high
noon. The raid was the deepest penetration of Florida by Union troops during
the entire Civil War. Several participants, who had fought in a number of
other battles, described the fight at Marianna as the “most intense” for its
size of any they experienced during the war.
The Battle of Marianna actually began about three miles northwest of town at
the place where the old Campbellton Road crossed Hopkins’ Branch, a narrow
sluggish stream. Colonel Alexander B. Montgomery and two companies of
Confederate cavalry tried to hold off the advancing Union soldiers here,
hoping to stop them from reaching town.
The effort failed and Montgomery and his outnumbered soldiers were driven
back from their positions along the branch. Fighting as they went, they fell
back to Marianna. When they reached the edge of the city, most of the
Confederates rode back into town via an old road that followed the route of
today’s Kelson Avenue before turning onto North Caledonia Street and coming
back up to the center of town.
The Union commander, Brigadier General Alexander Asboth, thought he might be
able to cut them off by dividing his force and sending some of his men along
the old road after them, while he and the rest of the Northern soldiers
charged up Lafayette Street. When he reached what is now the intersection of
Lafayette and Russ Streets, however, he found Colonel Montgomery and his
cavalry waiting for him.
The first group of Union soldiers, men from the 2nd Maine
Cavalry, charged, but the Confederate horsemen opened fire and drove them
back. Infuriated, Asboth called out “For Shame! For Shame!” to his men as
they retreated. He then ordered a second group of soldiers, also from the 2nd
Maine Cavalry, to charge and led them himself. The scene of all this
fighting was in Lafayette Street directly in front of today’s Jackson County
Chamber of Commerce offices. Over the years the street has been widened and
pavement now covers the entire area where the two forces battled.
Asboth’s second charge came on so fast that the Confederates did not have
time to reload their muzzle-loading weapons. Unable to fight back,
Montgomery and his men retreated up Lafayette Street with the Union soldiers
hot on their heels.
About half way between the Russ Street intersection and St. Luke’s Episcopal
Church, however, the local residents had placed a wall of wagons, logs and
other debris across the street. The Confederate cavalrymen rode over and
around this barricade and continued to retreat, the Union soldiers following
right behind them. What Asboth and his men did not know, however, was that
scores of local men and boys were hiding behind fences, shrubs and trees
along both sides of the street, ready to open fire as soon as he and his
soldiers passed between them.
No sooner had the head of the Union force made it past the barricade than
did the local residents open fire on them. A Northern soldier later
remembered that the ambush mowed down “every officer and man at the head of
the column.” General Asboth was shot twice, once in the jaw and once in the
arm and knocked from his horse. Other officers and men were severely wounded
as well, some receiving as many as eight gunshot wounds.
The Southern forces were too outnumbered, though, and their success did not
last long. Part of the Union force continued to pursue Colonel Montgomery
and his cavalry down the street, around the courthouse and down Jackson
Street to the old bridge. The colonel was captured at the southeast corner
of courthouse square (then actually a circle) when he was thrown from his
horse. Quite a few of his men made it to the river, however, where they tore
up the floorboards of the wooden bridge to keep the Union troops from
crossing after them. A sharp fight took place at the bridge, but Asboth’s
men were unable to force their way across.
Back on West Lafayette Street, however, things quickly deteriorated. The
local volunteers were cornered in the cemetery and yard surrounding St.
Luke’s Episcopal Church, but refused to surrender. For a time it appeared
they might actually be able to hold out, but the Union second in command,
Colonel L.L. Zulavsky ordered a bayonet charge through the cemetery and
finally forced them to surrender. Several were killed and wounded when some
of the Union troops fired on them after they had given up, but officers
quickly brought the scene under control.
Despite the surrender in the cemetery, a few of the Confederates barricaded
themselves inside the church and two nearby homes and refused to come out.
When they kept shooting at his soldiers, Colonel Zulavsky ordered the
buildings burned to drive them out. Four men died in the fire that swept
through St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.
Eighteen men lost their lives in the Battle of Marianna, either killed
outright or mortally wounded. Another thirty-five were wounded. Forty-four
of the Confederates were also captured and carried away to Northern prisons,
while eight of the Union soldiers were captured and eventually sent to
Andersonville prison in Georgia.
Ironically, much of the scene where this bloody fighting took place is now
buried under asphalt pavement. Over the years Lafayette Street has been
widened to the point that the four-lane highway now covers virtually the
entire scene of the Battle of Marianna, with the exception of the grounds of
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The quiet cemetery behind the church still
appears much as it did on the afternoon of September 27, 1864, when local
men and boys fought atop the graves of their ancestors in a failed effort to
protect their town. The memory of their courage echoes down through the
years, however, even as cars and trucks rumble past across the site where
much of the fighting took place.
Editor’s Note: Writer and historian Dale Cox is a native of the Jackson
County community of Two Egg. The son of Clinton and Pearl Cox, he attended
Malone High School and Chipola College before going on to work for more than
twenty-five years as a journalist and newsroom manager. He recently retired
from The New York Times Company. The author of the new book,
The Battle of Marianna, Florida,
he divides his time between the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas and the piney
woods of Jackson County.
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Union Troops Approach Marianna
Photo: Ashley Pollette
Confederate Participant
The Battle of Marianna, Florida
September 27, 1864
Captain Henry O. Bassett, a former sheriff of Jackson County, was on
leave from Company E, 6th Florida Infantry when it was learned the Union
army was advancing on Marianna. He offered his services to the local defense
troops and was killed during the Battle of Marianna. It has been reported
that he was actually murdered on the banks of Sage creek on the southern
border of the battlefield. His body was mutilated and he was only identified
by his Confederate officer clothing. Captain Bassett is buried at St.
Luke's Episcopal Church Cemetery.
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