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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 102/340

A History of Columbia County, Florida

area near the mouth of the Santa Fe River. The clothing, shoes,
medical supplies, and other goods where then hauled by team to
Lake City and returned with cotton for shipment to England. It
was rare that a blockade runner could make more than two trips
before capture.32
Although there were no serious food shortages in Florida,
many regular food items or small luxuries were not available.
Items such as rice, molasses, baking soda, black pepper, tea, and
white sugar were not to be had, but staples such as corn, beef, pork,
chickens, eggs, and local vegetables were in sufficient supply.33
The greatest battle of the Civil War in Florida took place on
February 20, 1864, some fifteen miles east of Lake City near
Olustee in Baker County. Baker and Bradford Counties were
created in 1862 when they were detached from Columbia County.
“Olustee” is a Seminole-Creek word which means “brackish” and
might have been applied to the large brackish lake, Ocean Pond,
located in the area. After the fourth occupation of Jacksonville
early in 1864, some fifty-five hundred Federal troops advancing
west toward Lake City were soundly defeated by a Confederate
force of comparable size in a savage battle.
The purposes of the Federal campaign into East Florida early
in 1864 were a complex mixture of military strategy and politics.
After the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, the role of Florida as a
supplier of food, especially beef and salt, took on new meaning for
the Confederacy. The fall of Vicksburg gave the Union control of
the Mississippi River and forced the eastern part of the Con­
federacy to rely completely upon its own food sources. Florida
already had been a major supplier of salt, so necessary for meat
preservation, and by the fall of 1863 Florida beef became essential
for military use. As Major H. C. Guerin, chief commissary officer
for South Carolina phrased it: “We are almost entirely dependent

3-Dancy, “Reminiscences,” pp. 78-79.
33Johns, Civil War in Florida, pp. 176-77.
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